CYBERSPACE — According to a report in the National Law Journal, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) will review at a meeting his month a report on the contentious question of “how much is too much?” when it comes to the information that domain registrants must publicly disclose – information currently available via a standard “Whois” query.On the one side of the debate, the side seeking greater privacy and confidentiality for domain registrants, stand privacy advocates, who argue that web site owners ought to have the option of keeping more of their contact information out of the public view.

Those that argue for greater confidentiality also observe that many countries have enacted much more stringent privacy laws than has the U.S., so a shift in ICANN policy towards less disclosure would be more appropriate to the global nature of both the internet and ICANN, itself.

On the other side of the debate stand many lawyers that specialize in intellectual property law, many of whom represent companies with widely known names, brands and trademarks that need to be protected from online infringement.

The debate over Whois confidentiality has been going on within ICANN for years now, and one thing that members of the ICANN board do appear to agree on is that some sort of decisive action must be taken, and taken soon.

“It’s become really contentious,” Rita Rodin, an attorney with the New York firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom who is also a member of the ICANN board told the Journal. “There will need to be action on this, this year.”

A council assembled by ICANN will consider the report at a meeting this month, and the ICANN board is expected to act on the council’s recommendations as early as June.

According to the Journal, ICANN is considering three options: “Continue to let domain name owners’ personal, technical and administrative contact information be viewed by all internet users; display only the name and country of an owner and allow that person or entity to designate additional information for a point of contact; or keep the current system and allow owners to cloak contact information only if there’s a risk to a registrant’s personal safety.”

Judging by the comments coming from either side of the debate, the conflict appears to boil down to an issue of intellectual property rights vs. the privacy rights of individuals and companies that register domains.

Attorney Steven Weinberg, who works on cases involving intellectual property rights enforcement for the law firm Greenberg Traurig, told the Journal that the information currently available through Whois queries is crucial for those that handle the legal issues that surround domain names.

“There are so many transactions and legal issues involved with domain names that it becomes important for people in business to know who owns them,” Weinberg said.

If ICANN adopts a policy that affords more privacy to domain registrants, attorneys like Weinberg will have to spend more money and time to ferret out the sort of information that is currently readily available through a quick and easy Whois query.

Weinberg said that not being able to access contact information via Whois queries would also reduce the opportunity to settle intellectual property disputes before they become courtroom battles, something he said he’s often able to do by contacting domain owners using the information available through Whois queries.

Other attorneys told the Journal that the frequency of infringement makes a more information-packed Whois result a powerful time-saving tool for businesses and their attorneys.

Steve Metalitz, who sits on the ICANN council that will meet this month to discuss the issue, said that Ebay uses Whois queries as many as 100 times per day to contact websites that are infringing on the company’s rights or using the Ebay name without permission.

On the other side of the fence, civil liberties and privacy advocates argue that the privacy rights typically available to individuals and businesses in the offline world shouldn’t be forfeited or curtailed online.

“This affects an enormous amount of people,” said Robin Gross, an attorney with the civil liberties group IP Justice. “If the status quo is maintained, it really sort of cements that consumers have lost any sort of privacy.”

Milton Mueller, a professor from the Syracuse University School of Information Studies, said in his comments to the ICANN council considering the issue that they only way to shield domain name owners from is to allow them to keep information private. Mueller likened it to the option that consumers have to have an unpublished phone number.

Mueller asserted that allowing so much information to be reported via Whois queries has exposed millions of domain owners to “spamming and the risk of stalking, identity theft and unjustified harassment and surveillance by intellectual property lawyers.”

Mueller added that the problem has “festered too long,” and agreed with Rodin and others that say ICANN must address the question as immediately as possible.

“It’s really the last chance to reach consensus,” Mueller said.