[ALAC] ACTION: Thick Whois Implementation Plan

[Alan Greenberg]

I volunteered to look at the implementation plan to implement the 
recommendation of the Thick Whois GNSO PDP.

To very briefly recap the background, for most gTLDs (and all of the 
new ones), the Whois information is maintained by the registry. For 
,com, .net and .jobs, the registry only maintains a minimum of 
information (primarily who the registrar is and when the domain 
expires) and the registrar maintains the bulk of the information 
including the identity and contact information of the registrant 
(subject to privacy/proxy issues).

The PDP considered whether all registries (including the three 
mention above all run by Verisign) should be required to use a thick 
Whois model. The recommendation was that they should.

Nearly two years into the implementation, we have a schedule for one 
of the ancillary recommendation (August 2016, 5 years after this 
process started), a date dependant on IETF action for a 2nd phase, 
and no plan or date for the prime recommendation of a universal Thick Whois.

I have posted a draft ALAC comment at 
https://community.icann.org/x/FIdlAw. I ask staff to formally open a 
comment period on this draft immediately, and to close on 22 January 
to allow the statement to be revised and a vote taken by the ALAC.