New Report Looks at Accuracy of WHOIS Registrant Contact Information
There have been many issues over the years about the quality (and accessibility) of WHOIS data.
Today, ICANN (Internet Corporation For Assigned Names and Numbers) made public a report titled, "Draft Report for the Study of the Accuracy of WHOIS Registrant Contact Information." It is a 35 page document.
The National Opinion Research Center (NORC) recently completed a study commissioned by ICANN to determine the percentage of domain names registered under the top 5 gTLDs (i.e., .com, .net, .org, .biz, and .info) that contain accurate WHOIS data. Today, the draft report is being posted for review and comment through 15 April 2010.
Community members are invited to review the draft report and its findings and comment on all aspects of the report. The information in the report is intended to contribute to the ongoing community discussion regarding WHOIS and should be useful in any future policy development process regarding WHOIS.
There have been concerns about the accuracy of the information in WHOIS for some time, although the actual extent of the problems is not known. In 2005, GAO conducted a study which looked at the prevalence of missing or patently false information, and found that nearly 5% of WHOIS records in the top three gTLDs (.com.org. .net) had missing or patently false information in the registrant name and address fields. The extent to which information which appeared complete but was in fact inaccurate was not addressed. This study was commissioned by ICANN in order to get a baseline measurement of what proportion of WHOIS records are accurate. The scope was limited to the quality of the information provided about the registrant (as opposed to the administrative or technical contact), since it is the registrant who has entered into a legal arrangement with the registrar for the domain name.
The Process Going Forward:
At the end of this Public Comment period, ICANN Staff will review the comments submitted and prepare a summary analysis of the various submissions.
Deadline and How to Submit Comments:
ICANN Staff is opening a 60-day public comment, from 15 February through 15 April 2010, and invites community comments on the draft report.
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