ICANN approves 2013 RAA

ICANN has approved a new version of its standard Registrar Accreditation Agreement, after almost two years of talks with registrars.
The new 2013 RAA will be obligatory for any registrar that wants to sell new gTLD domain names, and may in future become obligatory for .org, .info and .biz.
The new deal’s primary changes include obligations for registrars to verify email addresses supplied for Whois records as well as stronger oversight on proxy/privacy services and resellers.
Akram Atallah, president of ICANN’s new Generic Domains Division said in a statement:

In no small way this agreement is transformational for the domain name industry. Our multiple stakeholders weighed in, from law enforcement, to business, to consumers and what we have ended up with is something that affords better protections and positively redefines the domain name industry.

Registrars Stakeholder Group chair Michele Neylon told DI:

The 2013 RAA does include lot of changes that will be welcomed by the broad community. It addresses the concerns of the Governmental Advisory Committee, it addresses the concerns of law enforcement, it addresses the concerns of IP rights advocates, end user consumer groups and many others.

But Neylon warned that ICANN will need “proactive outreach” to registrars, particularly those that do not regularly participate in the ICANN community or do not have English as their first language.
The new RAA puts a lot of new obligations on registrars that they all need to be fully aware of, he said.
“The unfortunate reality is that a lot of companies may sign contracts without being aware of what they’re agreeing to,” Neylon said. “The entire exercise could be seen as a failure if the outliers — registrars not actively engaged in the ICANN process or whose first language is not English — are not communicated with.”
A new RAA was also considered a gateway event for the launch of new gTLDs, so applicants have a reason to be cheerful today.

1 Comment Tagged: 2013 raa, ICANN, proxy/privacy, registrar accreditation agreement, resellers, whois

Plural gTLDs not confusing, says ICANN (and two gotchas proving it wrong)

Dozens of new gTLD applicants will be breathing a sigh of relief this morning as ICANN said it will allow single and plural versions of the same gTLD to co-exist after all.
The decision, made Tuesday by ICANN’s New gTLD Program Committee, affects at least 98 applications. It said:

NGPC has determined that no changes are needed to the existing mechanisms in the Applicant Guidebook to address potential consumer confusion resulting from allowing singular and plural versions of the same string.

It was in response to the Governmental Advisory Committee, which had advised ICANN to “reconsider its decision to allow singular and plural versions of the same strings.”
Because of the wording of the advice, ICANN is able to disagree with the the GAC’s opinion that “singular and plural versions of the string as a TLD could lead to potential consumer confusion” without triggering its bylaws provision that forces it into time-consuming GAC negotiations.
By “reconsidering” plural/singular coexistence and not doing anything, it has stuck to the letter of the advice.
In its reconsideration it reconsiderated whether it should overturn the findings of its independent String Similarity Panel, which did not believe any plural/singular pairs were confusingly visually similar.
It also used the coexistence of second-level plural and singular domains, registered to different people, as evidence that users would not find similar coexistence at the top level confusing.
The decision has potentially far-reaching consequences on the new gTLD program.
First, it could mean that some plural/singular pairs will be allowed to exist while others will not.
There are a handful of formal String Confusion Objections filed by applicants for gTLDs that have singular or plural competitors in the current round.
These string pairs are not currently in contention sets, but if the objectors prevail only one of the strings will survive to delegation.
Other string pairs have no objections and will be allowed to coexist. This may be fair in a sense, but it’s not uniform nor predictable.
(One wonders if the String Confusion Objection arbitration panels will use ICANN’s ruling this week in their own decision-making process, which could open a can of worms.)
Second, I think the decision might encourage bad business practices by registries.
My beef with coexistence
I don’t think coexistence is a wholly terrible idea, but I do think it will have some negative effects, as I’ve expressed in the past.
First, I think it’s going to lead to millions of unnecessary defensive registrations.
And by “defensive” I’m not talking about companies protecting their trademarks. Whether you think they’re adequate or not, trademark owners already have protections in new gTLDs.
I’m talking about regular domain registrants, small businesses, entrepreneurs and so on. These people are going to find themselves buying two domains when they only need one.
Let’s say you’re Mad John’s Autos, and you’re registering madjohn.auto. You get to the checkout and Go Daddy offers you the matching .autos domain. Assuming similar pricing, you’d definitely register it, right?
You’ve always got to assume a certain subset of users will get confused and either wind up at a dead URL or a competitor’s site. It’s simpler just to defensively register both.
What if one was priced a little higher than the other? Maybe you’d still register it. How big would the price differential have to be before you decided not to buy the plural duplicate?
Buying two domains instead of one may not be a huge financial burden to individual registrants, but it’s going to lead to situations where gTLDs exist in symbiotic — or parasitic — pairs.
If you run the .auto registry, you may find that your plural competitor is spending so much on marketing .autos that you don’t need to lift a finger in order to sell millions of domain names.
Just make sure you’re partnered with the same registrars and bingo: you’re up-sell.
Attractive business plan, right? You may disagree, but when ICANN opens the floodgates for the second round of new gTLD applications in a couple years, we’ll find out for sure.
Two gotchas
Defenses of plural/singular gTLD coexistence often come from, unsurprisingly, the portfolio applicants that have applied for them and, presumably, may apply for them in future rounds.
“Singulars and plurals live together now on the [second-level domain] side,” Uniregistry said. “They create healthy competition and do not unduly confuse consumers to the point of annoyance.”
I wouldn’t disagree with that statement. Plural/singular coexistence may not confuse internet users to the point of danger or annoyance. But, I would argue, they do make people buy more domain names than they need to.
If you were buying autos.com today you’d definitely definitely buy auto.com as well and redirect it to autos.com. You’d be an idiot not too.
When I put this to Uniregistry execs privately several weeks ago, they disagreed with me. Nobody would bother with such duplicative/defensive domains, they said.
In response, I asked, cheekily: so why do you own uniregistries.com, redirecting it to uniregistry.com?
Another portfolio applicant, Donuts, also didn’t like the idea of plurals and singulars being mutually exclusive, according to this CircleID article. It doesn’t think they’re confusingly similar.
Yet a press release put out by the company last month accidentally said it planned to put its application for .apartment to auction.
The problem is that Donuts hasn’t applied for .apartment, it has applied for .apartments.
I feel rotten for highlighting a simple typo by a fellow media professional (I make enough of those) but isn’t that what we’re often talking about when discussing confusing similarity? Typos?
If the registry can get confused by its own applied-for strings, doesn’t that mean internet users will as well?
Oh, I’m a cybersquatter
Interestingly, ICANN’s belief that plurals are not confusing appears to be institutional.
At least, I discovered this morning that icanns.org, the plural of its primary domain, was available for registration.
So I bought it.
Let’s see how much traffic it gets.
If I get hit by a UDRP, that could be interesting too.

13 Comments Tagged: beijing, confusing similarity, gac, governmental advisory committee, ICANN, new gTLDs, plurals, string confusion objection

ICANN freezes “closed generic” gTLD bids

ICANN has temporarily banned “closed generic” gTLDs in response to Governmental Advisory Committee demands.
The ban, which may be lifted, affects at least 73 applications (probably dozens more) for dictionary-word strings that had been put forward with “single registrant” business models.
ICANN’s New gTLD Program Committee on Tuesday voted to prevent any applicant for a closed generic gTLD from signing a registry contract, pending further talks with the GAC.
In order to sign a registry agreement, applicants will have to agree to the following Public Interest Commitments:

1. Registry Operator will operate the TLD in a transparent manner consistent with general principles of openness and non-discrimination by establishing, publishing and adhering to clear registration policies.
2. Registry Operator of a “Generic String” TLD may not impose eligibility criteria for registering names in the TLD that limit registrations exclusively to a single person or entity and/or that person’s or entity’s “Affiliates” (as defined in Section 2.9(c) of the Registry Agreement). “Generic String” means a string consisting of a word or term that denominates or describes a general class of goods, services, groups, organizations or things, as opposed to distinguishing a specific brand of goods, services, groups, organizations or things from those of others.

The effect of this is that applications for closed generics are on hold until ICANN has figured out what exactly the GAC is trying to achieve with its advice, which emerged in its Beijing communique (pdf).
Closed generics have not to date been a specific category of gTLD. They’re basically bids like Symantec’s .antivirus, L’Oreal’s .beauty and Amazon’s .cloud, where the gTLD is not a “dot-brand” but every second-level domain would belong to the registry anyway.
The two main reasons the new gTLD program has allowed them so far are a) ICANN decided that coming up with definitions for categories of gTLD was too hard and prone to abuse, and b) ICANN didn’t want to overly restrict registries’ business models.
Apparently all it needed was a nudge from the GAC and a change of senior management to change its mind.
ICANN now has a definition of “generic”, which I believe is a first. To reiterate, it’s:

a string consisting of a word or term that denominates or describes a general class of goods, services, groups, organizations or things, as opposed to distinguishing a specific brand of goods, services, groups, organizations or things from those of others

If the proposed PIC stands after ICANN’s talks with the GAC, nobody will be able to operate a generic string as a single-registrant gTLD.
But there may be one massive loophole.
Let’s say Volkswagen had applied for .golf (it didn’t) as a single-registrant dot-brand gTLD.
In that context, “golf” is a word used to label one model of car, “distinguishing a specific brand of goods, services, groups, organizations or things from those of others”.
But the word “golf” is also indisputably “a word or term that denominates or describes a general class of goods, services, groups, organizations or things”.
So which use case would trump the other? Would Volkswagen be banned from using .golf as a dot-brand?
It’s not just hypothetical. There are live examples in the current round of single-registrant applications that are both generic terms in one industry and brands in others.
Apple’s application for .apple is the obvious one. While it’s hard to imagine apple farmers wanting a gTLD, we don’t yet know how crazy the gTLD landrush is going to get in future rounds.
What of Bond University’s application for .bond? It’s a brand in terms of further education, but a generic term for debt instruments in finance.
Boots’ application for .boots? A brand in the high street pharmacy game, a generic if you sell shoes. Google’s application for .chrome is a brand in browsers but a generic in metallurgy.
None of the examples given here (and there are many more) are on the GAC’s list of problematic closed generics, but as far as I can see they would all be affected by ICANN’s proposed PIC.
The affected applications are not dead yet, of course. ICANN could change its view and drop the new PIC requirement a few months from now after talking to the GAC.
But the applications do appear to be in limbo for now.

1 Comment Tagged: beijing, closed generics, gac, governmental advisory committee, ICANN, new gTLDs, pics

ICANN offers to split the cost of GAC “safeguards” with new gTLD registries

All new gTLD applicants will have to abide by stricter rules on security and Whois accuracy under government-mandated changes to their contracts approved by the ICANN board.
At least one of the new obligations is likely to laden new gTLDs registries with additional ongoing costs. In another case, ICANN appears ready to shoulder the financial burden instead.
The changes are coming as a result of ICANN’s New gTLD Program Committee, which on on Tuesday voted to adopt six more pieces of the Governmental Advisory Committee’s advice from March.
This chunk of advice, which deals exclusively with security-related issues, was found in the GAC’s Beijing communique (pdf) under the heading “Safeguards Applicable to all New gTLDs”.
Here’s what ICANN has decided to do about it.
Mandatory Whois checks
The GAC wanted all registries to conduct mandatory checks of Whois data at least twice a year, notifying registrars about any “inaccurate or incomplete records” found.
Many new gTLD applicants already offered to do something similar in their applications.
But ICANN, in response to the GAC advice, has volunteered to do these checks itself. The NGPC said:

ICANN is concluding its development of a WHOIS tool that gives it the ability to check false, incomplete or inaccurate WHOIS data
…
Given these ongoing activities, ICANN (instead of Registry Operators) is well positioned to implement the GAC’s advice that checks identifying registrations in a gTLD with deliberately false, inaccurate or incomplete WHOIS data be conducted at least twice a year. To achieve this, ICANN will perform a periodic sampling of WHOIS data across registries in an effort to identify potentially inaccurate records.

While the resolution is light on detail, it appears that new gTLD registries may well be taken out of the loop completely, with ICANN notifying their registrars instead about inaccurate Whois records.
It’s not the first time ICANN has offered to shoulder potentially costly burdens that would otherwise encumber registry operators. It doesn’t get nearly enough credit from new gTLD applicants for this.
Contractually banning abuse
The GAC wanted new gTLD registrants contractually forbidden from doing bad stuff like phishing, pharming, operating botnets, distributing malware and from infringing intellectual property rights.
These obligations should be passed to the registrants by the registries via their contracts with registrars, the GAC said.
ICANN’s NGPC has agreed with this bit of advice entirely. The base new gTLD Registry Agreement is therefore going to be amended to include a new mandatory Public Interest Commitment reading:

Registry Operator will include a provision in its Registry-Registrar Agreement that requires Registrars to include in their Registration Agreements a provision prohibiting Registered Name Holders from distributing malware, abusively operating botnets, phishing, piracy, trademark or copyright infringement, fraudulent or deceptive practices, counterfeiting or otherwise engaging in activity contrary to applicable law, and providing (consistent with applicable law and any related procedures) consequences for such activities including suspension of the domain name.

The decision to include it as a Public Interest Commitment, rather than building it into the contract proper, is noteworthy.
PICs will be subject to a Public Interest Commitment Dispute Resolution Process (PICDRP) which allows basically anyone to file a complaint about a registry suspected of breaking its commitments.
ICANN would act as the enforcer of the ruling, rather than the complainant. Registries that lose PICDRP cases face consequences up to an including the termination of their contracts.
In theory, by including the GAC’s advice as a PIC, ICANN is handing a loaded gun to anyone who might want to shoot down a new gTLD registry in future.
However, the proposed PIC language seems to be worded in such a way that the registry would only have to include the anti-abuse provisions in its contract in order to be in compliance.
Right now, the way the PIC is worded, I can’t see a registry getting terminated or otherwise sanctioned due to a dispute about an instance of copyright infringement by a registrant, for example.
I don’t think there’s much else to get excited about here. Every registry or registrar worth a damn already prohibits its customers from doing bad stuff, if only to cover their own asses legally and keep their networks clean; ICANN merely wants to formalize these provisions in its chain of contracts.
Actually fighting abuse
The third through sixth pieces of GAC advice approved by ICANN this week are the ones that will almost certainly add to the cost of running a new gTLD registry.
The GAC wants registries to “periodically conduct a technical analysis to assess whether domains in its gTLD are being used to perpetrate security threats such as pharming, phishing, malware, and botnets.”
It also wants registries to keep records of what they find in these analyses, to maintain a complaints mechanism, and to shut down any domains found to be perpetrating abusive behavior.
ICANN has again gone the route of adding a new mandatory PIC to the base Registry Agreement. It reads:

Registry Operator will periodically conduct a technical analysis to assess whether domains in the TLD are being used to perpetrate security threats, such as pharming, phishing, malware, and botnets. Registry Operator will maintain statistical reports on the number of security threats identified and the actions taken as a result of the periodic security checks. Registry Operator will maintain these reports for the term of the Agreement unless a shorter period is required by law or approved by ICANN, and will provide them to ICANN upon request.

You’ll notice that the language is purposefully vague on how registries should carry out these checks.
ICANN said it will convene a task force or GNSO policy development process to figure out the precise details, enabling new gTLD applicants to enter into contracts as soon as possible.
It means, of course, that applicants could wind up signing contracts without being fully apprised of the cost implications. Fighting abuse costs money.
There are dozens of ways to scan TLDs for abusive behavior, but the most comprehensive ones are commercial services.
ICM Registry, for example, decided to pay Intel/McAfee millions of dollars — a dollar or two per domain, I believe — for it to run daily malware scans of the entire .xxx zone.
More recently, Directi’s .PW Registry chose to sign up to Architelos’ NameSentry service to monitor abuse in its newly relaunched ccTLD.
There’s going to be a fight about the implementation details, but one way or the other the PIC would make registries scan their zones for abuse.
What the PIC does not state, and where it may face queries from the GAC as a result, is what registries must do when they find abusive behavior in their gTLDs. There’s no mention of mandatory domain name suspension, for example.
But in an annex to Tuesday’s resolution, ICANN’s NGPC said the “consequences” part of the GAC advice would be addressed as part of the same future technical implementation discussions.
In summary, the NGPC wants registries to be contractually obliged to contractually oblige their registrars to contractually oblige their registrants to not do bad stuff, but there are not yet any obligations relating to the consequences, to registrants, of ignoring these rules.
This week’s resolutions are the second big batch of decisions ICANN has taken regarding the GAC’s Beijing communique.
Earlier this month, it accepted some of the GAC’s direct advice related to certain specific gTLDs it has a problem with, the RAA and intergovernmental organizations and pretended to accept other advice related to community objections.
The NGPC has yet to address the egregiously incompetent “Category 1” GAC advice, which was the subject of a public comment period.

7 Comments Tagged: abuse, beijing, gac, governmental advisory committee, ICANN, new gTLDs, pics, registry agreement, security, whois

Is the ICC ripping off new gTLD objectors?

New gTLD applicants have reportedly complained to ICANN about the unexpectedly high cost of dealing with objections.
The International Chamber of Commerce has apparently been quoting objectors prices as high as €150,000 for a three-person panel to handle a formal community objection.
At $195,000, that’s almost $10,000 more than the original ICANN application fee.
Because Community Objections run on a loser-pays basis, the stakes are high indeed. An applicant could lose its application, most of its application fee, and still have to pay the objector’s fees.
The complaints emerged during a session with ICANN new gTLD program head Christine Willett at a meeting in Brussels earlier this week, according to consultant and occasional DI contributor Stephane Van Gelder.
Writing on the NetNames blog yesterday, Van Gelder quoted Willett as saying:

We are aware that ICC fees are more than people were expecting. Some applicants have been quoted around 50,000 Euros for a one expert panel and 150,000 Euros for a three expert panel. Although in the same order of magnitude as the cost estimate listed in the applicant guidebook, they are still higher. In some cases, significantly higher. In fact, we had one applicant write to us last week saying that their quoted expert fee was more than the ICANN fees for submitting their application in the first place! So we have reached out to ICC and are hoping they can provide some rationale for the costs they are quoting.

The Applicant Guidebook does not detail the fees charged by dispute resolution providers, but materials provided by the ICC (pdf) say that its admin costs are €12,000 and €17,000 for a one-person and three-person panel respectively. The hourly rate for the panelists is €450, it says.
With a €150,000 total cost, back of the envelope doodling suggests that each panelist expects to spend around 100 hours working on each case — over two weeks at seven hours a day.
By contrast, the World Intellectual Property Organization’s fees for handling Legal Rights Objections with a three-person panel start at $23,000 ($3,000 for WIPO, $20,000 for the panelists).

4 Comments Tagged: community, ICANN, icc, new gTLDs, objections

Rejected .gay gTLD objection ruled “unfair”

dotgay LLC could be hit by another formal new gTLD objection from gay Republicans.
ICANN Ombudsman Chris LaHatte today said that it was “unfair” that a community objection filed by GOProud, a gay lobby group, was rejected by the International Chamber of Commerce.
The ICC screwed up, it seems, judging by LaHatte’s decision.
Washington DC-based GOProud, which seeks to show that not all gay rights advocates have liberal views on other issues, had filed a community-based objection to dotgay’s .gay gTLD application.
While the substance of the objection is not known, I suspect it’s politically motivated. The other objection to dotgay’s application was filed by another gay Republican organization, the Metroplex Republicans of Dallas (formerly Log Cabin Republicans Dallas).
The ICC rejected the objection because it was about 500 words over the prescribed limit, but it sent the notification to the wrong email address, according to LaHatte’s blog.
Had GOProud received the notification, it would have had time to amend its objection to rectify the mistake. However, by the time it discovered the problem the filing deadline had passed.
LaHatte wrote:

there is some unfairness in the subsequent rejection given the apparent error in the use of the wrong email. It seems to me that it would be relatively easy to unwind that decision, and permit the late filing of the objection. I can of course only make a recommendation, but in this case where there is some unfairness I think the matter should be revisited.

The Ombudsman’s role is to handle complaints about unfairness in ICANN’s actions, so it’s not entirely clear what’s going to happen in this case, given that the ICC is an ICANN subcontractor.
LaHatte’s recommendation is certainly not binding in either case. Whether the ICC changes its mind may depend on whether ICANN asks it to or not.
dotgay is the New York-based applicant founded by Scott Seitz. It’s one of four companies applying for .gay.
The other three applicants — Top Level Domain Holdings, Top Level Design and Demand Media — have each received community objections from the International Lesbian Gay Bisexual Trans and Intersex Association, a dotgay supporter.

Comment Tagged: .gay, community, dotgay, goproud, ICANN, icc, international chamber of commerce, new gTLDs, objections, Ombudsman

Afternic picked to handle .buzz premium names

Afternic and NameJet have been selected by the applicant for .buzz, dotStrategy, to manage premium domain name allocation in the new gTLD.
Afternic will build the .buzz reserved names list and sell them through its marketplace, while NameJet will exclusively handle sunrise, landrush and premium name auctions, the company said in a press release.
Arkansas-based dotStrategy, which is also in a contention set for .fun, thinks .buzz will be a memorable gTLD for marketing campaigns, among other purposes.
Its .buzz application has already passed Initial Evaluation with ICANN, is uncontested and has no objections or GAC worries. The company reckons it could go to sunrise by October.

2 Comments Tagged: .buzz, afternic, dotstrategy, namejet, namemedia, new gTLDs

TLDH and Famous Four ink new gTLD revenue sharing deal

New gTLD portfolio applicants Top Level Domain Holdings and Famous Four Media did in fact make a deal to resolve three contention sets, as suspected.
TLDH has just confirmed that it withdrew its applications for .science and .review in exchange for Famous Four withdrawing its application for .fit.
But the deal also includes a revenue-sharing component — TLDH will get a cut of whatever revenue Famous Four makes selling .review domain names after it goes live.
All three of the gTLDs in question were in two-way contention sets between the two companies, as we reported yesterday.
TLDH gave the following update:

TLDH now has interests in 23 uncontested applications, including 15 wholly/majority owned applications, 6 where it is acting as the registry service provider for client applications, 1 equal joint venture, and 1 where it will receive a minority revenue share. Of the remaining 63 applications which TLDH either wholly-owns, is a joint-venture partner, or is acting as the registry service provider, 7 are in contention with a single other applicant, 17 with two other applicants and 39 are in contention with three or more applicants.

While the dollar amounts concerned were not disclosed, I can’t help but feel TLDH got a good deal with .review.
For the cost of an ICANN application fee*, much of which was recouped in refunds, it seems to be getting an ongoing revenue stream with no ongoing costs and little future risk.
* Of course, in TLDH’s case it has also been burning cash for the best part of five years waiting for new gTLDs to come to life, but you get the point.

2 Comments Tagged: .fit, .review, .science, Famous Four Media, ICANN, new gTLDs, tldh, top level domain holdings

Tweets from Chehade’s keynote in Brussels today

ICANN CEO Fadi Chehade gave a keynote address at a meeting of European stakeholders in Brussels today.
While the meeting is evidently not accessible remotely, some interesting tweets and photos may give a flavor of the event and his remarks. I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the quotes.

#icann ceo giving keynote at Brussels meeting right now. pic.twitter.com/l7idKI5WxR

— Stephane Van Gelder (@stephvg) June 25, 2013

Fadi Chehadé at #ICANN #Brussels briefing: we need to birth new TLDs by the autumn, they are cutting oxygen from ICANN & making ICANN sick

— Caroline Greer (@CarolineGreer) June 25, 2013

Fadi Chehade at #ICANN CENTR meeting: "New #gTLD Registries are our licensees: our clients are registrants".

— StartingDot (@StartingDot) June 25, 2013

#icann Brussels briefing Fadi addressing The european stakeholders pic.twitter.com/Wjei3vlvxU

— Andrea Beccalli (@becktweet) June 25, 2013

F Chehadé: Europe can play a unique, moderating role in #InternetGovernance, standing between extreme national positions #ICANN

— Caroline Greer (@CarolineGreer) June 25, 2013

Fadi Chehadé: "There is no way one government, not even the US, can control the Internet" #ICANN Briefing Brussels

— Ana Olmos (@anaolmos) June 25, 2013

"We are committed to getting #newgtlds out by this fall!" Fadi Chehadé #icann CEO today in Brussels.

— Stephane Van Gelder (@stephvg) June 25, 2013

Fadi Chehadé: "Registrants are #ICANN's customers; not registrars, not registries" –> Focus on #users

— Ana Olmos (@anaolmos) June 25, 2013

8 Comments Tagged: ICANN, new gTLDs

Whois headed for the scrap heap in “paradigm shift”

Whois’ days are numbered.
An “Expert Working Group” assembled by ICANN CEO Fadi Chehade has proposed that the old Whois service we all love to hate be scrapped entirely and replaced with something (possibly) better.
After several months of deliberations the EWG today issued an audacious set of preliminary recommendations that would completely overhaul the current system.
Registrants’ privacy might be better protected under the new model, and parties accessing Whois data would for the first time have obligations to use it responsibly.
There’d also be a greater degree of data validation than we have with today’s Whois, which may appease law enforcement and intellectual property interests.
The new concept may also reduce costs for registries and registrars by eliminating existing Whois service obligations.
The EWG said in its report:

After working through a broad array of use cases, and the myriad of issues they raised, the EWG concluded that today’s WHOIS model—giving every user the same anonymous public access to (too often inaccurate) gTLD registration data—should be abandoned.
Instead, the EWG recommends a paradigm shift whereby gTLD registration data is collected, validated and disclosed for permissible purposes only, with some data elements being accessible only to authenticated requestors that are then held accountable for appropriate use.

The acronym being proposed is ARDS, for Aggregated Registration Data Services.
For the first time, gTLD registrant data would be centralized and maintained by a single authority — likely a company contracted by ICANN — instead of today’s mish-mash of registries and registrars.
The ARDS provider would store frequently cached copies of Whois records provided by registries and registrars, and would be responsible for validating it and handling accuracy complaints.
To do a Whois look-up, you’d need access credentials for the ARDS database. It seems likely that different levels of access would be available depending on the user’s role.
Law enforcement could get no-holds-barred access, for example, while regular internet users might not be able to see home addresses (my example, not the EWG’s).
Credentialing users may go some way to preventing Whois-related spam.
A centralized service would also provide users with a single, more reliable and uniform, source of registrant data.
Registrars and registries would no longer have to provide Whois over port 43 or the web, potentially realizing cost savings as a result, the EWG said.
For those concerned about privacy, the EWG proposes two levels of protection:

• An Enhanced Protected Registration Service for general personal data privacy needs; and
• A Maximum Protected Registration Service that offers Secured Protected Credentials Service for At-Risk, Free-Speech uses.

If I understand the latter category correctly, the level privacy protection could even trump requests for registrant data from law enforcement. This could be critical in cases of, for example, anti-governmental speech in repressive regimes.
The proposed model would not necessarily kill off existing privacy/proxy services, but such services would come under a greater degree of ICANN regulation than they are today.
It appears that there’s a lot to like about the EWG’s concepts, regardless of your role.
It is very complex, however. The devil, as always, will be in the details. ARDS is going to need a lot of careful consideration to get right.
But it’s a thought-provoking breakthrough in the age-old Whois debate, all the more remarkable for being thrown together, apparently through a consensus of group members, in such a short space of time.
The EWG’s very existence is somewhat controversial; some say it’s an example of Chehade trying to circumvent standard procedures. But it so far carries no official weight in the ICANN policy-making process.
Its initial report is currently open for public comment either via email direct to the group or planned webinars. After it is finalized it will be submitted to the ICANN board of directors.
The board would then thrown the recommendations at the Generic Names Supporting Organization for a formal Policy Development Process, which would create a consensus policy applicable to all registries and registrars.
With all that in mind, it’s likely to be a few years before (and if) the new model becomes a reality.

11 Comments Tagged: aggregated registration data service, ards, expert working group, ICANN, whois