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Quote:The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers will hold hearings next week on its rules concerning the privacy of Internet address holders. Currently, anyone seeking personal information on a domain name's owner can use a tool called Whois, a method favored by organizations ranging from law enforcement to journalists to spammers...

Many owners of Internet addresses face this quandary: Provide your real contact information when you register a domain name and subject yourself to junk or harassment. Or enter fake data and risk losing it outright.

Help may be on the way as a key task force last week endorsed a proposal that would give more privacy options to small businesses, individuals with personal Web sites and other domain name owners...

Quote: Whois may be scrapped to break deadlock

"The Whois database is in fact the best, most well-recognized tool that we have to be able to track down who in fact you are doing business with," said Bohannon, the trade group's general counsel, adding that alternatives such as issuing subpoenas to service providers take more time and cost money.

Nonetheless, some privacy advocates are proposing scrapping the system entirely because they can't agree with the people who use the system on how to give domain name owners more options when they register — such as designating third-party agents. Privacy advocates say individuals shouldn't have to reveal personal information simply to have a Web site.

The so-called "sunset" proposal is expected to come up Wednesday before a committee of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, a key Internet oversight agency.

It will have a tough time winning approval — and could create chaos. But the fact that abandoning Whois is on the table underscores frustrations among privacy advocates that ICANN appears on the verge of launching new studies and deferring a decision yet again after some six years of debate...

Quote:Quick, people: what takes seven years? Biblical plagues? Itches?

If you guessed an ICANN policy development process - that's a PDP to you, luddite - you are correct. ICANN today officially cut off the oxygen to its Whois reform PDP after seven years in favor of... well, no one's quite sure, yet. Something must have happened - after all, we're not hanging out at LAX for the charming scenery and the cool jumbos...