In early April, WhoIs voted 18-9 to restrict the listings, which must be made publicly available, only to those responsible for technical configuration problems. In other words, the proposed change would mean that the party responsible for the content of the website, the owner, need not be made public on the WhoIs database.
According to Marc Rotenberg, executive director for the Electronic Privacy Information Center, the rule change would be a “very good result” for privacy.
Of course, not everyone is happy with the idea of changing the rules. Companies like Microsoft, Disney and others use the information in the WhoIs database to locate and prosecute scam artists and trademark infringers.
Removing the reporting requirement will result in the inability of companies to find and interdict such people, according to Bruce A. MacDonald, a trademark lawyer for Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewish.
Still, the vote has Internet watchers with a decidedly anti-corporate bent riding high.
“[The vote] shows that ICANN isn’t under the control of trademark interests and the U.S. government,” Milton Mueller, a Syracuse University professor and privacy advocate, said.
However, Mueller cautioned that in light of the power struggle between the U.S. Commerce Department and ICANN over control of the Internet — and to a lesser extent, the fight over .XXX — it’s uncertain who will ultimately prevail on this privacy issue.
Commenting on the power struggle between ICANN and Commerce, Rotenberg noted the U.S. is in a difficult position because retaining control over ICANN, rather than yielding to the U.N., means allowing some ICANN decisions to go against American interests.