Table of Contents................................................................................................................................................ 2

I Introduction............................................................................................................................................. 3

A Preface........................................................................................................................................................... 3

B History and Mission.............................................................................................................................. 6

C Participation in the Survey.............................................................................................................. 9

D Statistical Considerations........................................................................................................... 18

E Method of Evaluation of Free-Form Questions................................................................ 19

II User Expectation and Experience (qq. 5-10)......................................................................... 21

A Questions Asked..................................................................................................................................... 21

B Methodology of Evaluation......................................................................................................... 25

C Results of Evaluation....................................................................................................................... 26

III Uniformity and Centralization (qq. 11-15)......................................................................... 40

A Summary..................................................................................................................................................... 40

B Questions Asked..................................................................................................................................... 41

C Results of Evaluation....................................................................................................................... 42

D Findings and Discussion of Results........................................................................................... 49

E Some individual Responses............................................................................................................... 50

IV Resale/Marketing and Bulk Access (qq. 16, 17)................................................................ 52

A Summary..................................................................................................................................................... 52

B Questions Asked..................................................................................................................................... 52

C Method of Evaluation...................................................................................................................... 55

D Results of Evaluation....................................................................................................................... 57

E Some Individual Responses.............................................................................................................. 63

F Findings and Discussion of Results........................................................................................... 69

V Third Party Services (qq. 18, 19).................................................................................................. 71

A Summary..................................................................................................................................................... 71

B Questions Asked..................................................................................................................................... 71

C Results of Evaluation....................................................................................................................... 72

D Findings........................................................................................................................................................ 74

VI Other Comments (q. 20)..................................................................................................................... 76

A Questions Asked..................................................................................................................................... 76

B Method of Evaluation...................................................................................................................... 77

C How the Information is Presented in the Report............................................................. 78

VII Final Conclusions.............................................................................................................................. 79

VIII Request for Discussion: Possible WHOIS Recommendations................................ 81

A Accuracy of data contained in the WHOIS database................................................. 82

B Uniformity of data formats and elements across various TLDs and registrars, including ccTLDs. 82

C Better searchability of WHOIS databases.......................................................................... 84

D Marketing use of WHOIS data; bulk access provisions............................................... 85

IX Task Force Members; Contact................................................................................................... 87

A Authors of This Report..................................................................................................................... 87

B Archives and Contact....................................................................................................................... 88

C Members of the Task Force............................................................................................................. 88

I Introduction

By Marilyn Cade, Tony Harris, Tim Denton

(Business, ISP, Registrars)

A Preface

The WHOIS Task Force (WHOIS TF) announces our final draft report on the Survey findings and presents our preliminary recommendations regarding whether ICANN should seek to modify the WHOIS policy. We are posting the report for community feedback and comment prior to finalization and submission to the ICANN board of directors. We anticipate our report being open for public comment for a period of three weeks following the Bucharest meeting. Following the public comment period, the final report will be presented to the DNSO Names Council for approval.

In March, 2002, we presented our preliminary report which provided a status report and update on the work of the WHOIS Task Force of the Domain Name Supporting Organization (DNSO). The purpose of that report was to provide initial information to the community on the analysis of the statistical responses to the WHOIS Survey and some very preliminary findings of the Task Force, Our report in March was primarily focused on the quantitative responses; we announced then that our further analysis would address the narrative responses, and whether they signify disparities with the quantitative responses, and that we would undertake an analysis of question 20’s narrative responses. .

Our final DRAFT report takes into account the initial statistical analysis, the narrative analysis, and other submissions which have been submitted to the TF. Consideration of WHOIS policy is a significant issue and we acknowledge that we have been focused on the survey results as a primary input. However, we note that this is only part of our work to understand and advise fully on WHOIS policy.

Our final draft report is being forwarded to the ASO and PSO for their comment as well.

It is important to remember that the WHOIS Survey is one work product of the WHOIS Task Force, and while it has been the primary focus for the past several months, the TF has also tried to examine other relevant inputs, including submissions, and recent testimony related to WHOIS accuracy. Our Recommendations Document reflects these additional inputs in a preliminary manner. During the Public Comment period, the Task Force also plans to consult with other interested parties regarding our recommendations. These inputs will also be reflected in our final report..

Task Force Mission: to be filled in… Tony/Marilyn

Limitations of the Survey

It is important to ensure that there is clarity on what the survey was intended to accomplish and to acknowledge its limitations. The survey was intended to get as much input as possible from users, providers and other groups who use WHOIS and who would respond to a web based survey. In no way should this survey be considered statistically valid; and that was not its intent. The data presented in the survey is now several months old, and that, too, much be taken into account. However, as the Task Force has analyzed the responses, and taken other inputs into account, we see no reason to believe that the survey inputs would have significantly changed over the past few months.

The original members of the TF worked hard to develop a broad survey; they did not employ the assistance of a professional survey team for a variety of reasons, including the purpose of the outreach. The survey was intended as a "snapshot" in time which could be used as input along with other mechanisms for input and consultation which the TF may undertake, in order to provide guidance on what further steps should be taken in the development of policy recommendations related to WHOIS.

In hindsight, with the benefit from weeks of reading hundreds of narrative responses to surveys, and examining whether the narrative responses are consistent with the quantitative responses, and searching for trends, anomalies, and other useful observations, it is evident that some of the questions and choices for answers contained in the survey could have been designed better. For example, question 5 asks about the purposes of WHOIS, but fails to offer "technical problems" as a possible option in the response. That was clearly an oversight in the questionnaire design.

The TF acknowledges the limitations of the questionnaire; however, we ask our readers to focus on the findings, input, recommendations, and perspectives which are clearly supported.

And, at least at this point, although the narrative responses were interesting to read and examine, there is no significant change reflected between the narrative responses and the statistical responses. In other words, providing narrative options does not seem to have added significant value. On the other hand, Question 20 did provide an opportunity for people to write in free form, any further thoughts or considerations. We have taken the approach of looking for unusual suggestions or items as illustrations. That is explained further later.

This survey was conducted prior to the launch of the seven new TLDs, and as a result some of the user responses may be different from when the survey was conducted.

Status of the Analysis

The Task Force undertook the analytic analysis of the over 3000 responses, and published those in the preliminary report in March. That report is available on our archives. Much of its findings are incorporated in this final report, which builds on the statistical analysis and adds to it, based on the narrative responses. A more detailed description of the analysis process is provided in the Statistical Analysis Section.

In addition to its original mission, the Task Force received an additional work referral from the Names Council related to the Verio appeal involving marketing uses of WHOIS data. In undertaking a further discussion regarding this referral, the Task Force discussed the applicability of the survey responses, and agreed that questions 16, and 17 are directly applicable to this referral.[1]

We continue to remind our readers that this is not a statistically valid survey. One can take any piece of a puzzle and forecast an outcome; if the only puzzle pieces one is looking at are images of trees, the assumption might be that the puzzle is about a forest. If on the other hand, the pieces include parts of a castle, a forest, and a field, then one might realize that one is beholding a landscape. In short, the total picture, when the puzzle is assembled might look very different. Nevertheless, pieces of the puzzle are critically important in considering the whole.

Acknowledgements:

We express our appreciation to the initial chair of the Task Force, Paul Kane, who shouldered a significant leadership role in launching the Task Force and it’s initial work. We offer our thanks to several members whose "terms" have expired with the NC or GA, and therefore have moved on, to be replaced with new representatives of their respective entities. We also thank the ICANN staff for their administrative support and counsel during this process.

And, we note that the work of the Task Force has been significantly enhanced through the volunteer leadership of the GA members of the Task Force, and a special word of appreciation is due to Thomas Roessler, Kristy McKee, and Abel Wisman. In this later stage of our work, in particular, we note that the contributions of Thomas Roessler and Kristy McKee have made the final stages of the work of the TF comprehensible, organized, and productive. Without their contributions, we would not have been able to conclude the analysis of the data and the production of this final draft report.

Most of all, we thank those in the community who completed the survey.

We are pleased to present our final draft report on the survey’s findings to the community, and welcome your questions and comments. We look forward to receiving your comments on this Report. We expect to have our report open to comment for three weeks following Bucharest meeting, and to publish our final report within a two week period following that period of open comment, in order to take account of community response and further planned outreach by the Task Force..

B History and Mission

The WHOIS Task Force of the DNSO grew out of the initial work of the .com/.net/.org WHOIS Committee convened by the ICANN staff to give advice on the implementation of WHOIS service for the .com/.net/.org domains as required under the Registrar agreement. The committee addressed implementing questions. The committee’s work was concluded in April, 2001. The implementation of the committee’s work included the establishment of a WHOIS Committee on domain-name-system policy, chaired by Paul Kane. This report does not address the history of the creation of the TF further, since the archives include relevant postings which led to the establishment of the TF by the DNSO.

The Task Force was approved in the DNSO Names Council meeting, February 8, 2001[2]. In summary, Paul Kane proposed that the DNSO set up a Task force to consider the policy issues arising from the ICANN WHOIS report. The Terms of Reference for the TF are provided in the archival materials posted at the DNSO web site.[3] The Terms of Reference have subsequently been modified to incorporate further consideration of “NEXT STEPS” RELATED TO WHOIS.

A paraphrased version of the initial terms of reference : "To consult with the community with regard to establishing whether a review of any questions related to ICANN’s WHOIS policy is due and if so to recommend a mechanism for such a review."

During the time it took for the ICANN staff to publish their report, initial members were also being identified by the Constituencies. The initial members of the TF were:

Paul Kane, Registrars, Chair

Y.J. Park, Non Commercial

Axel aus der Muhlen, IPC

Theresa Swinehart, BC

Oscar Robles-Garay, ccTLD*

Antonio Harris, ISPCP*

Miriam Sapiro, Registry

Danny Younger, GA Chair

* REMAIN AS MEMBERS OF TF

Over time, the membership of the task force has changed, for various reasons. A list of all task force members and their terms of representation, including current members can be found in the appendix section of this document.

From the beginning, to support their broad mission, the TF members were committed to gaining an understanding of how WHOIS affects users, and how the community is using it today, rather than relying on the perspectives and views of the members of the TF. They quickly came up with the concept of a survey, which was web based, and therefore, while not statistically valid, would provide a systematic "snapshot" of what those who chose to respond, cared about, who they were, and what their concerns and issues were.

The survey was developed and published in June, 2001, with one extension in responses. The survey closed in August, 2001.[4] 3035 responses were received.

SUMMARY OF REPORT APPROACH AND FINDINGS:

Our report summarizes the details of the statistical responses, with an analysis of the narrative responses and whether they represent significant departure from the statistical responses. For the most part, there is no deviation. However, the TF also undertook analysis of Question 20 to determine whether there were ‘gems’ embedded in those responses.

“Gems” can be defined as those unique statements which cause one to pause and think, because they represent input on a separate question which asked for narrative input. The TF does not evaluate the value of “gems” but notes them in each relevant chapter, and suggests that they offer additional learning, but that they do not change the findings.

The following chapters examine in detail the survey responses by categories of questions, both statistically, and via the narrative responses. The “Gems” sections should be treated as the least statistically valid, but are offered to you as a reader, to provide illustrations of those submissions in Q.20 which generated some special interest from the TF. It is important to note that the narrative questions were, in general, answered by about one third of the respondents to the survey and that only one third of the respondents completed any part of Question 20. Many did not respond to all the optional segments of Question 20. Yet, the TF thought you might find the ‘gems’ of interest.

The report concludes with the findings of the Survey. A separate document on TF Recommendations related to WHOIS is underway, taking into account the survey findings and other inputs.

C Participation in the Survey

By Kristy McKee, Thomas Roessler, and Abel Wisman

(General Assembly)

Question 1 - Categories of Respondents

In the very first question, participants were asked to classify themselves into one of several categories:

1. Which of the following terms best describes your status as a respondent to this survey?

o             Commercial business user
o             Non-commercial organization user
o             Governmental organization user
o             Individual or household user
o             Domain name registrar and/or registry
o             Internet access provider or network operator
o             Other:

Respondents were also asked (where applicable) what size their organization is. An overview over the categories of respondents can be found in the table below. The data is also represented in the pie chart below.

Category	#	%
Commercial business user	1063	35%
Non-commercial organization user	208	7%
Governmental organization user	35	1%
Individual or household user	1021	34%
Domain name registrar and/or registry	130	4%
Internet access provider or network operator	234	8%
Other:	222	7%
(No Response)	122	4%
Total Responses:	3035	100%

Clearly, commercial and individual/household users dominated the population of respondents to the survey.

Question 2 - Participation of Domain Name Holders

The second question of the survey asked whether participants "have registered any domain names". This wording is unfortunate: With some registrars/registries, ISPs, and certain kinds of commercial respondents, the question may be interpreted to refer to domain names registered on behalf of customers, while other respondents may rather be thinking about domain names they have registered for their own use.

2. Have you registered any domain names? o yes o no

If "yes":

a. How many ccTLD domain names have you registered:

b. How many gTLD domain names have you registered:

What was the general purpose of your registration:

a. commercial

b. governmental

c. personal

d. noncommercial organization

e. other

Question 2 – Have you registered any domain names:

Question 2	yes	no	No Response	Total	% yes	% no
Commercial	973	81	9	1063	92%	8%
Governmental	20	14	1	35	57%	40%
Individual	730	279	12	1021	71%	27%
Isp	207	22	5	234	88%	9%
non-commercial	177	29	2	208	85%	14%
not stated	20	4	98	122	16%	3%
Other	156	59	7	222	70%	27%
registrar-registry	114	14	2	130	88%	11%

Results vary strongly across categories of respondents: While, for instance, 92% of commercial respondents have registered domain names, only 71% of individual respondents, and 57% of governmental respondents have registered any domain names. It is also interesting to note that 17% of those who answered the questionnaire did not register any domain names.

Question 2 – How many County Code Top Level Domains:

ccTLD	0	1 to 9	10 to 99	100 to 999	1000 to 9999	10000	Not Stated	Total (stated)
Commercial	179	356	188	71	12	4	253	810
Governmental	3	14	1				17	18
Individual	188	343	33	2			455	566
Isp	35	42	40	42	14	5	56	178
non-commercial	35	81	17				75	133
not stated	3	8		2		1	108	14
Other	45	47	24	5		1	100	122
registrar-registry	12	29	15	16	20	5	33	97

Question 2 – How many Generic Top Level Domains:

GTLD	0	1 to 9	10 to 99	100 to 999	1000 to 9999	10000	Not Stated	Total (stated)
Commercial	66	316	205	107	32	4	333	730
Governmental	3	9	1				22	13
Individual	74	403	53	4	1		486	535
Isp	8	45	57	42	20	5	57	177
non-commercial	19	87	28	1			73	135
not stated		9	4	2	1		106	16
Other	16	53	35	14	4		100	122
registrar-registry	11	25	18	16	12	7	41	89

The qualitative result is clear: ISPs and registrars/registries are most likely to have the large domain name portfolios (possibly on behalf of their clients), governmental, individual, and non-commercial respondents have the smaller ones, and commercial respondents are somewhere in between.

For most categories the largest group of respondents register 1-10 domain names, with a sharp decrease for higher numbers of registrations. The ISP and registrar-registry respondents differ, in these cases either decreasing considerably less quickly, or even remaining constant over some orders of magnitude (as with the ccTLD registrations of registrars and registries).

Question 2 – General Purpose for domain name registrations:

	commercial	governmental	non-commercial	other	personal	Total (stated)
Commercial	920		18	18	37	993
Governmental		16	4	1	2	23
Individual	119	2	63	24	569	777
Isp	169		12	11	25	217
non-commercial	11		145	7	19	182
not stated	11	1	4	2	4	22
Other	98		17	34	23	172
registrar-registry	78	1	12	6	27	124

The results are not unexpected: Commercial entities (including ISPs, registries/registrars) mostly registered domain names for commercial purposes, governmental entities register for governmental purposes, non-commercials for non-commercial purposes, and individuals for personal purposes.

Question 3 - Frequency of Use of WHOIS

Question 3 asked participants how frequently they use the WHOIS service themselves:

3. How often do you use the Whois service on average?
o             never
o             occasionally
o             weekly
o             once or twice a day
o             many times a day

Question 3	hourly	daily	weekly	occasionally	never	not stated	Grand Total
Commercial	183	184	290	374	31	1	1063
Governmental	4	3	7	18	3		35
Individual	72	131	260	509	45	4	1021
Isp	109	58	42	22	3		234
non-commercial	32	32	66	69	7	2	208
not stated	1	4	5	13		99	122
Other	40	27	82	58	13	2	222
registrar-registry	45	18	23	34	8	2	130
Grand Total	486	457	775	1097	110	110	3035

Question 3 (%)	% hourly	% daily		% weekly	% occ.	% never	% not stated
Commercial	17%		17%	27%	35%	3%	0%
Governmental	11%		9%	20%	51%	9%	0%
Individual	7%		13%	25%	50%	4%	0%
Isp	47%		25%	18%	9%	1%	0%
non-commercial	15%		15%	32%	33%	3%	1%
not stated	1%		3%	4%	11%	0%	81%
other	18%		12%	37%	26%	6%	1%
registrar-registry	35%		14%	18%	26%	6%	2%
Total	16%		15%	26%	36%	4%	4%

It should be noted that results of this question once again vary strongly across categories of respondents. Clearly, among the participants of this survey, ISPs are the heaviest WHOIS users, followed by registrar/registry users, while governmental and individual respondents use WHOIS the least. Also, 31% of the respondents use whois one or several times per day, and 26% use it on a weekly basis, while 40% of them indicated they use WHOIS occasionally or never.

Question 4 - Use of WHOIS

Question 4 asked about respondents’ use of the WHOIS system:

4. Which of the following most accurately describes the use of WHOIS that is most important to you or your organization:

o To determine if a specific domain name is unregistered/
available?

o             To find out the identity of a person or organization who
                is responsible for a domain name or web site I have
                encountered while using the Internet
o             To support technical operations of ISPs or network
                administrators, including tracing sources of spam or
                denial of service attacks

o To identify the owner of a domain name for consumer protection or intellectual property protection purposes

o To gather names and contact information for marketing
purposes

o             To support government law enforcement activities
                (other than intellectual property)
o             Other (please briefly describe)

Multiple responses to this question were accepted.

Question 4	availability	responsibility	technical	IP[5]	marketing	law[6]	other	*# respondents*
Commercial	482	574	352	389	28	30	66	1063
governmental	26	16	19	6		7	4	35
Individual	513	626	322	136	18	23	71	1021
Isp	97	142	167	36	5	20	23	234
non-commercial	125	107	75	53	3	13	12	208
not stated	109	14	7	9	1	2	1	122
Other	140	97	49	117	8	12	31	222
Registrar-registry	48	73	50	34	5	7	11	130
Grand Total	1540	1649	1041	780	68	114	219	3035

The percentages in the following table use the total population of respondents for any given category as the 100% reference totality. Since multiple responses were accepted, percentages will generally add up to more than 100%. In each row, the dominant use of WHOIS is marked in boldface.

Question 4 (percentages)	availability	responsibility	technical	IP	marketing	law	other	Grand total
Commercial	45%	54%	33%	37%	3%	3%	6%	180.71%
governmental	74%	46%	54%	17%	0%	20%	11%	222.86%
Individual	50%	61%	32%	13%	2%	2%	7%	167.38%
Isp	41%	61%	71%	15%	2%	9%	10%	209.40%
non-commercial	60%	51%	36%	25%	1%	6%	6%	186.54%
not stated	89%	11%	6%	7%	1%	2%	1%	117.21%
Other	63%	44%	22%	53%	4%	5%	14%	204.50%
Registrar-registry	37%	56%	38%	26%	4%	5%	8%	175.38%
Average	51%	54%	34%	26%	2%	4%	7%	178.29%

The dominant use of the WHOIS system among respondents is, in the commercial, individual, and registrar-registry categories, “to find out the identity of a person or organization who is responsible for a domain name or web site”. Governmental respondents generally mention WHOIS as a means to find out about the availability of a domain, as do non-commercial, “not stated”, and “other” respondents. ISP respondents mostly use WHOIS “to support technical operations of ISPs or network administrators”.

It’s worth noting that non-IP law enforcement use is most frequently mentioned by governmental respondents (20%), followed by ISPs (9%) and non-commercials (6%). Also, almost 90% of respondents which did not assign any category to themselves mention “availability” as their most important use of WHOIS.

D Statistical Considerations

By Thomas Roessler

(General Assembly)

The multiple choice questions were evaluated for the full set of 3035 submitted responses. This analysis is also broken down by respondent’s category (as given in question 1).

The number of participant per category of respondent (question 1) is, in particular, important since they give a rough indication of the precision of the numbers in this report. In the table below, we give standard deviations (σ ) to be expected for various results, when derived from various categories of respondents.[7]

From a (possibly simplistic) statistical point of view, the best results can be expected from the commercial business user and individual user categories where we have standard deviations between 1% and 2%. Statistical significance is worst within the governmental users category. We shall occasionally mention error margins explicitly where they are important in order to correctly interpret the result of a particular question.

Category	#	10%	20%	30%	40%	50%
Commercial business user	1063	1%	1%	1%	2%	2%
Non-commercial organization user	208	2%	3%	3%	3%	3%
Governmental organization user	35	5%	7%	8%	8%	8%
Individual or household user	1021	1%	1%	1%	2%	2%
Domain name registrar and/or registry	130	3%	4%	4%	4%	4%
Internet access provider or network operator	234	2%	3%	3%	3%	3%
Other	222	2%	3%	3%	3%	3%
(No Response)	122	3%	4%	4%	4%	5%

Approximating the binomial distribution by a Gaussian normal distribution, it can be assumed that a result has a probability of about 68.3% to lie within a +1σ margin around the real value, and with a probability of 95% it can be assumed that a result lies within a +1.96σ margin around the true value.

It should also be noted that, unless stated otherwise, percentages given refer only to those who elected to answer a particular question, but not to the entire set of respondents from any given category.

Besides error margins inherent to any survey, it should also be mentioned that some additional error was introduced by duplicate submissions; some isolated cases of these were found by the task force’s members when analyzing free-form responses. Since these duplications were extremely rare, we have simply neglected them.

Another (we believe, minor) problem is introduced by an inconsistence between statistics generated by ICANN staff and by the task force itself: There were 10 questionnaires where respondents actually gave an "other" response to question 1 (the "category" of the respondent), but apparently did not check the associated button on the survey’s web form. As a result, these questionnaires were assigned to the "not stated" category of respondents in ICANN-prepared statistics. However, these questionnaires are assigned to the "other" category of respondents in statistics prepared by the Task Force, that is, in all evaluations of free-form responses. The inconsistency was noticed so late in the preparation of this report that we decided not to fix it.

E Method of Evaluation of Free-Form Questions

By Thomas Roessler

(General Assembly)

The Task Force undertook an attempt to analyze as many answers given to free-form questions as possible. For all free-form questions except question 20, the approach taken was similar to the one used for the preliminary report: Based on the pseudo-random set of 303 responses used for the preliminary report[8], categories (called “baskets”) were designed in order to derive quantitative results from the free-form questions. Task Force members were then assigned slices of questions for basketing. Due to lack of time and resources, about half to one third of the free-form responses given were analyzed in this first pass. Two members of the Task Force[9] then specifically looked at those responses which could not be assigned to any baskets in the first pass, and added any additional categories necessary. Using that revised set of baskets, a second pass of categorization was undertaken: Task Force members who had not participated in the first pass concluded part of their assignment; others specifically undertook an analysis of the questionnaires received from governmental, non-commercial, ISP, and registry-registrar respondents: In these categories, the number of responses received is dangerously low, and significant improvement of results could be expected by giving priority to the completion of these categories of responses. (It should be noted that the number of commercial and individual responses reviewed during the first pass of this work alone surpassed the total number of responses received in the smaller categories.)

This approach to the Task Force’s work implies that - as far as free-form answers are concerned - statistics based on the totality of all respondents cannot be generated by simply adding absolute numbers across categories: That would mean to give too much weight to the small groups of respondents. Instead, numbers must be weighted according to the portion of baskets actually investigated. This information is contained in the tables in which the results from basketing are presented in individual sections.

It should also be noted that the task force members’ understanding or misunderstanding of “baskets” and of free-form answers received may lead to additional errors in the statistics presented.

Question 20 was not analyzed statistically: Instead, some members of the task force reviewed the free-form answers given on about 2400 out of the 3035 questionnaires received and produced, based on their personal judgement, a list of answers believed to be particularly interesting or thoughtful. These answers were then categorized by the chapter of this report to which they were believed to be relevant. Further analysis was left to the authors of the respective chapters.
User Expectation and Experience (qq. 5-10)

By Steve Metalitz, Laurence Djolakian, and Ken Stubbs, Hakikur Rahman

(Intellectual Property, Registrars, and Non Commercial)

A Questions Asked

5. What should be the purpose of the Whois service? (place in order 1-7 where 1 is most important):

Rank: to identify the availability of a particular name in
which someone is interested

Rank: to determine if there are similar names already in use

Rank: to identify and verify online merchants

Rank: to identify online infringes for enforcement of
intellectual property rights

Rank: to source unsolicited email

Rank: to identify contacts in the investigation of illegal
activity

Rank: other (specify):

6. Which of the following best describes your attitude towards access to the data contained in the Whois service?

o I am most concerned about protecting the privacy of domain
name registrants

o             I am most concerned about effective identification of who is
                behind a specific domain for consumer protection or
                intellectual property protection purposes

o I am most concerned about ensuring that Whois supports
the resolution of technical problems on the Internet

o No opinion

o Other

7. Have you ever been harmed or inconvenienced because the Whois data you received was inaccurate, incomplete, or out of date?

o Yes, I have experienced inaccurate data.

o No, the data has been accurate

What percentage of the Whois records you relied on proved to be inaccurate, incomplete, or out of date on average:

o Less than 5 percent

o 5 - 25 percent

o 25 - 50 percent

o More than 50 percent

If appropriate, please describe the harm or inconvenience caused by the inaccurate data:

How do you think an improvement can best be achieved?

8. Currently, Whois records in .com, .net, and .org are composed of the following data elements:

A. The name of the second-level domain being registered and the top-level domain it is under;
B. The IP addresses of the primary and secondary name servers for the registered domain;
C. The host names of the name servers;
D. The identity of Registrar;
E. The date of the original registration;
F. The expiration date of the registration;
G. The name and postal address of the registrant;
H. The name, postal address, e-mail address, voice telephone number, and (where available) fax number of the technical contact for the SLD; and
I. The name, postal address, e-mail address, voice telephone number, and (where available) fax number of the administrative contact for the SLD.

Would you describe these data elements as

                o             Adequate for your purposes
                o             Inadequate for your purposes
                o             necessary for your purposes

8.1 If you answered "Inadequate," what other data elements would you like to see included to promote public confidence in Internet activities?

8.2 If you answered "Unnecessary," what other data elements would you like to see suppressed from public disclosure?

9. Please indicate which of the data elements listed in A-I above are, in your view, of valueless, essential, or desirable:

A. The name of the second-level domain being registered and the top-level domain it is under;