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<big><b>[[IANA Transition]]</b></big><br>

<big><b>[[Whois]]</b></big><br>

The IANA Functions Stewardship Transition is a process and community discussion regarding the transition of IANA functions stewardship from its historical contract with the United States government's NTIA to the global Internet community. The process and discussion is spearheaded by ICANN and its various stakeholder groups, and was catalyzed by an announcement in March 2014 by NTIA that they would be relinquishing the stewardship to the Internet community.

Whois (pronounced as the phrase Who is) represents a protocol that is mainly used to used to find details and information about domain names, networks and hosts. The Whois records contain data referring to various organizations and contacts related to the domain names. The Whois protocols operate by means of a server where anyone is allowed to connect and create a query; the Whois server will then respond to this query and end the connection.  

The NTIA announcement led to an ICANN-spearheaded discussion that began with a "Call for Public Input on the Draft Proposal of the Principles, Mechanisms and Process to Develop a Proposal to Transition NTIA's Stewardship of the IANA Functions" that was posted by ICANN on 8 April 2014. The organization received hundreds of comments, highlighting the need to create a multistakeholder, transparent, and bottom-up process. A process document was published that included next steps and the implementation of a Coordination Group that would lead discussion and process of the IANA transition going forward.

During the foundational period of the Internet the only organization that was responsible for the administration of domain name registrations was DARPA. As the Internet grew in the 1980s, the Whois system appeared with the purpose of administering and looking-up domain names, registrants and other resources related to domain name registration. Still, at that time there was only the one organization registering domains, so the system acted as a centralized query-based server. Over time the number of gTLDs significantly increased, which led to complex networks of registrars and related associations; in response the Whois servers became stronger and less permissive.[3]

How to maintain both a privacy secure and safe Whois system, and an accurate database for contacts for any domain registrant, has been one of the most intractable issues at ICANN. Whois is one of 4 issues areas that is subject to Independent Review under ICANN's Affirmation of Commitments with the U.S. Government.[4] At ICANN 45 in Toronto, the fist opening ceremony address by new ICANN CEO, Fadi Chehadé, he memorably said that the Whois problem should not have been drawn out for 12 years and should not be a difficult problem to solve.[5][6]

In late 2012, a senior executive at ICANN was brought in to focus exclusively on Whois.

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<small><strong>Related: [[IANA]] - [[NTIA]] - [[ICANN]]</strong></small>

<small><strong>Related: [[IANA]] - [[NTIA]] - [[ICANN]]</strong></small>