ICANN Finalizes Draft on New WHOIS Policy

ICANN, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has finalized its draft on the new whois policy that will reduce inaccurate whois registration up to 50% in just 12 months. ICANN is very committed in their responsibilities in making the internet safe and secure by overhauling and reviewing the whois policy which provides information on the owner of a domain name and the registrar it uses.

WHOIS allows us to check the information of the registrant of the website as the name and phone number but most of the time its always inaccurate such as false and fictitious names. Although, in the other hand, not giving your real WHOIS information can protect your privacy and intellectual property rights but at least it provides supervision especially for sites that violates certain rules and policies implemented by ICANN. A registrar such as godaddy will have this information.

As an internet user who also own a handful of websites, WHOIS information is very important and I do use real information since I intend to use the internet in regards with the ICANN rules but it is disappointing when you check the WHOIS of some websites and they uses names like “Lady Gaga” or “Justin Bieber” or even “god”. It’s true, privacy is important but you need to take responsibility of the contents that you spread the internet. it doesn’t mean that you have to make your information available in the internet, there are options in which you can hide your WHOIS but at least even if its hidden or protected by domain registrar it is still real.

The final draft has been published last January 30 and a downloadable pdf is available from the ICANN website. ICANN is also seeking for public comments regarding the new policy until March 18, 2012 and I agree with ICANN, seeking public opinion regarding the WHOIS policy is very important for it encompasses privacy, security and responsibility and also intellectual rights.

The team reviewing the new WHOIS policy includes representatives from across the ICANN constituencies, a law enforcement representative, and two independent experts. Domain registrars such as GoDaddy are also posting links on the new policy. I honestly think that this is a good action from ICANN and it can help safeguard the information and protect intellectual rights in the world wide web. Every registrar has to abide by them, price increases or not. Some offer deals to help consumers with the increase such as go daddy promotional codes which give a discount for domains and other services.