Public Interest Registry Co-Sponsors Privacy Conference: Building Bridges on ICANN's WHOIS Questions; .ORG Registry Takes Leadership Role in Reforming WHOIS Data Protection.

RESTON, Va. -- Public Interest Registry (PIR), the .ORG registry; the ICANN Noncommercial Users Constituency; The Registry Constituency; and Cole, Raywid & Braverman LLP co-sponsored a privacy conference at the Vancouver, Canada, ICANN meeting. More than 200 delegates from the global domain space community, noncommercial community and law enforcement attended "Building Bridges on ICANN WHOIS Questions" to discuss WHOIS data privacy issues; learn how the .UK., .JP and .CA country code top-level domain registries are protecting their customers' data; and gain insight from other industries' data protection models, including TELUS. In addition, for the first time in a public forum, registries, registrars and the Noncommercial Users Constituency proposed their own data protection models.

The keynote speaker, Ms. Stephanie Perrin, director or research and policy for the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, examined the Canadian Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) that was passed in 2000 and its impact on the WHOIS data policy for the Canadian Internet Registrar Authority (CIRA), the registry for .CA.

"PIR is pleased to have sponsored this event," said David Maher, senior vice president of law and policy for PIR. "This is a concrete demonstration of our commitment to a strong privacy policy for people who register domain names in the .ORG top-level domain. We see no reason for continuing the present rules that require us to make personal data, such as home phone numbers and addresses, available to anyone who uses the WHOIS inquiry system. Privacy is an important matter and is an issue worth fighting for. The time has come for a reform, and we believe that the privacy conference in Vancouver is an important step in moving forward on this issue. It brought together recognized experts from around the world to forge an alliance for progress."

Michael Geist, a CIRA director and chair of PIR's Advisory Council Policy Committee stated, "CIRA has been a leader in WHOIS policy reform. The proposed CIRA WHOIS policy strikes an appropriate balance between privacy protection and legitimate access to domain name registrant information. It is heartening to see other registries, including PIR, addressing privacy concerns within their respective registry frameworks."

About PIR

Public Interest Registry (http://www.pir.org) is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit corporation created by the Internet Society (ISOC) to manage the .ORG domain. PIR's mission is to manage the .ORG domain in an exemplary manner, while educating and empowering the global noncommercial community to use the Internet more effectively and, concurrently, to take a leadership position among Internet stakeholders on policy and related issues on behalf of the .ORG community. PIR is based in Reston, VA, USA.

About .ORG

The .ORG domain, which has come to be associated with noncommercial activities, is the Internet's third largest "generic" or non-country specific top-level domain with more than 4 million domain names registered worldwide. In 2002, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) Board of Directors selected ISOC's proposal from among 11 organizations bidding to operate the .ORG top-level domain. PIR assumed control of the registry on 1 January 2003.