ICANN Considers Eliminating Anonymity For Commercial Websites

ICANN is studying a proposal to eliminate the ability of owners of commercial websites from hiding their identity through alias registrations. Presently, a commercial website owner can register its domain with an alias so as to avoid identification by a WhoIs search. ICANN is considering changing its policy concerning alias registration by commercial website owners. Toward this end, ICANN is inviting public comment through July 7, 2015 on this issue. The title of ICANN's policy study is "Next-Generation gTLD Registration Directory Services (RDS) to Replace Whois Preliminary Issue Report." To provide comment, contact ICANN within the coming week via e-mail, at policy-staff@icann.org, attention Marila Konings.