Navigating the Policy Implications of RFC 954 and Domain Name Whois in the gTLD Environment

Preamble

There have been many discussions¹ regarding the policy implications of Whois within the ICANN community over the past few years. They have been an important part of the process.

In order to fulfill ICANN’s mandate, the community must resolve technical coordination issues by rooting operational policies in the fertile ground created by a widespread understanding of the salient issues and sometimes differing points of view. We must avoid unintended consequences and ensure that our decisions remain relevant – for the entire range of stakeholders – for an appropriate amount of time into the future