WHOIS Timeline, 1982 – 2007

 

Prepared by Dr. Milton Mueller and Mawaki Chango, Syracuse University School of Information Studies

See the full paper at the TPRC site

Phases:

WHOIS Established as part of Internet

WHOIS Remains in Place by Default as Internet is Opened to the Public

New WHOIS Institutionalized by ICANN regime

Political contention over WHOIS as identification tool vs. data protection laws and norms

 

Date/Period

Event or released material (link)

Source/Author

March 1, 1982

First specification of a standard for WHOIS (NICNAME) RFC 812: http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc0812.txt?number=812

IETF, Ken Harrenstien
Vic White (NIC; SRI International)

August 1982

First specification of the Domain Name System (DNS) in RFC 819, http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc0819.txt?number=819

IETF, Network Working Group Zaw-Sing Su (SRI) Jon Postel (ISI)

October 1985

RFC 954 updating the WHOIS standard, http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc0954.txt?number=954

IETF, Network Working Group; K. Harrenstien, M. Stahl, and E. Feinler (SRI)

1991-1992

Internet opened to public; Commercial Internet eXchange founded in 1991 and legislation passed in 1992 revising NSF's Acceptable Use Policy to permit public use of NSF supported networks

CIX, NSF

1992 - 1993

Public release of graphical World Wide Web browsers

Mosaic, Netscape

1994

First lawsuits related to domain name -  trademark conflicts

http://ischool.syr.edu/~mueller/studyhp.html

US Courts

July 1995

Charging for domain registrations instituted by NSF

Network Solutions, Inc. (NSI)

1996 – 1999

Growth of automated processes to collect zone file / WHOIS data from centralized NSI database

 

November 1998

US Commerce Department recognizes ICANN as the “NewCo” called for by the June 1998 White Paper

http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/domainname/icann-memorandum.htm

US Commerce Department

January 1999

US Commerce Department, NSI agree on usage restrictions for zone file data for .com, .net and .org

US Commerce Department, NSI

March 1999 – November 1999

First ICANN Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA) developed

http://www.icann.org/registrars/policy_statement.html

http://www.icann.org/registrars/ra-agreement-12may99.htm

http://www.icann.org/nsi/icann-raa-04nov99.htm

ICANN

April 30, 1999

Final Report of WIPO Internet Domain Name Process recommends that “contact details of all domain name holders should be made publicly available”

http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/processes/process1/report/finalreport.html

WIPO

August 3, 2000 – February 2001

Litigation related to Verio’s use of automated collection of Whois and zone file data for marketing purposes, http://www.icann.org/announcements/advisory-02feb01.htm http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/20020122.rc01.4.html)

Injunction granted http://www.icann.org/registrars/register.com-verio/order-08dec00.htm

Register.com v. Verio, Inc.

May 2000

International Working Group on Data Protection in Telecommunications warns ICANN that “publication of personal data of domain name holders gives rise to data protection and privacy issues.”

http://www.datenschutz-berlin.de/doc/int/iwgdpt/dns_en.htm

Internationaler Datenschutz, Berlin, Germany

December 1. 2000

WHOIS Committee convened by ICANN to address implementation questions caused by registrar competition

http://www.icann.org/committees/whois/

ICANN (VP & General Counsel)

March 6, 2001

ICANN WHOIS Committee recommends standardizing WHOIS output across registrars http://www.icann.org/committees/whois/committee-recommendations-06mar01.htm

ICANN WHOIS Committee

May 2001

2nd (Current) Iteration of ICANN Registrar Accreditation Agreement

http://www.icann.org/registrars/ra-agreement-17may01.htm

ICANN

July2001

Congressional Hearing on "The WHOIS Database: 'Privacy and Intellectual Property Issues.'" http://judiciary.house.gov/media/pdfs/printers/107th/73612.pdf

US House, Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property

Feb 2001 – February 2003

 

First ICANN Whois Task Force (WHOIS TF 1) established, focusing on accuracy, postponing privacy

http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/nc-whois/Arc00/ (List archives)

http://www.icann.org/gnso/whois-tf/report-19feb03.htm (final report)

http://www.icann.org/correspondence/touton-message-to-cade-30jan03.htm

ICANN/DNSO

May 2002

Congressional Hearing on "The Accuracy and Integrity of the Whois Database." http://judiciary.house.gov/media/pdfs/printers/107th/79752.pdf

US House, Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property

September 2002

ICANN WHOIS Data Problem Reports system established

http://wdprs.internic.net/

ICANN

September 2003

Congressional Hearing on “Internet Domain Name Fraud – The U.S. Government’s Role in Ensuring Public Access to Accurate WHOIS Data.” http://judiciary.house.gov/media/pdfs/printers/108th/89199.pdf

US House, Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property

September 18, 2003

Second ICANN WHOIS Task Force (WHOIS TF 2), focusing on Whois-privacy issues, http://gnso.icann.org/meetings/minutes-whois-sc-18sep03.shtml:

ICANN/GNSO Council

October 2003

Registrar WHOIS Data Reminder Policy goes into effect

ICANN

November 2005

GAO releases report Quantifying Prevalence of False Contact Information for Registered Domain Names” http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d06165.pdf

US Governmental Accountability Office

November 28, 2005

GNSO Council voted by a supermajority in favor of the ‘Recommendation on a procedure for potential conflicts between Whois requirements and privacy laws’ in the Final Task Force Report of the Whois Task Force

GNSO Council

March 15, 2006

Final Task Force report on the purpose of Whois and Whois contacts http://gnso.icann.org/issues/whois-privacy/tf-report-15mar06.htm

GNSO Council / WHOIS Task Force

April 12, 2006

GNSO Council supermajority vote for narrow, technical definition of WHOIS purpose

"http://gnso.icann.org/meetings/minutes-gnso-12apr06.shtml

GNSO Council

May 10, 2006

ICANN Board unanimously approves GNSO Council ‘Recommendation on a procedure for potential conflicts between Whois requirements and privacy laws’ in the Final Task Force Report of the Whois Task Force, http://www.icann.org/minutes/minutes-10may06.htm

ICANN Board

June 22, 2006

Broad set of letters to ICANN Reacting to new purpose definition, including Article 29 Working Party http://icann.org/correspondence/

Article 29 WG, Privacy Commissioner of Canada, AIPLA, banks, etc.

July 25, 2006

Letter on the consultation on the implementation of .ca Whois look-up directory privacy policy http://icann.org/correspondence/

CIRA

November 22, 2006

Preliminary Task Force Report on Whois Services http://gnso.icann.org/issues/whois-privacy/prelim-tf-rpt-22nov06.htm

ICANN GNSO Council

March 12, 2007

Final task force report on Whois services,  recommending OPoC proposal http://gnso.icann.org/issues/whois-privacy/whois-services-final-tf-report-12mar07.htm

ICANN GNSO Council

Letter from Article 29 Working Party reacting to the 'Draft Procedure on Potential Conflicts with Whois Requirements and National Laws' and 'Preliminary Task Force Report on Whois Services' http://icann.org/correspondence/

Article 29 Data Protection Working Party

 

 

 

March 28, 2007

GAC Principles regarding gTLD Whois services http://gac.icann.org/web/home/WHOIS_principles.pdf

ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee

GNSO Council creates a new WHOIS Working Group to modify the OPoC proposal to specify which legitimate third parties may have access to the data that is no longer publicly available. The WG continued from April to August 2007, http://gnso.icann.org/issues/whois-privacy/whois-wg/whois-working-group-charter-16apr07.pdf

 

ICANN GNSO Council

August 21

WHOIS Working Group report published, which fails to reach consensus on access methods or criteria

http://gnso.icann.org/drafts/icann-whois-wg-report-final-1-9.pdf

GNSO WHOIS Working Group