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The annual meeting of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) began this week with a warning from a U.S. congress member that unless domain registrars can verify their customers, Congress may step in and force them to do it.

"Without verification, we leave the field open for malevolent registrants," and that includes anyone from intellectual property thieves to terrorists using the Web to raise money and exchange information, said Rep. Howard Berman (D-California). Verification of the Whois database, the directory that lists names and contact information of people who register, "can help law enforcement track these people," he said. He addressed ICANN at Monday at the meeting in Marina del Rey, California.

Berman left it unclear what action he would take, but as the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Property, he is in a position to make changes.

But Berman also underscored his support for those who use the Internet anonymously and said allowing people such freedom is important. "I do not believe accurate and complete Whois information conflicts with the goal of allowing anonymous Internet usage," he said.

Security Concerns

The accuracy of the Whois database is only one of many security-related issues likely to be examined over four days of meetings by ICANN and the wide array of businesses, organizations and academics that have gathered in this coastal community.

In response to the terrorist attacks on September 11, ICANN is turning over most of the meeting time to discussion of the security of the Domain Name System (DNS). The primary job of this international, nonprofit organization is to ensure the stability of the DNS.

But Berman's solution, mandating verification of people who register domain names, also underscored the problem that ICANN faces. The group can't force businesses and organizations to take specific actions unless they voluntarily agree by contract. It's also an international organization, and U.S. law can't cross borders.

There are also technical issues to consider. It's extremely difficult for registrars to verify addresses and phone numbers in many countries, according to Rick Wesson, president of Alice's Registry in Santa Cruz, California. "Other countries do not provide access to the data," he said.

Current Efforts

ICANN has a self-regulatory system for ensuring accuracy. If a registrar, under its agreement with ICANN, is told that particular Whois data is incorrect, it "has an obligation to correct it or delete the domain name," said Andrew McLaughlin, ICANN's chief policy officer.

Underscoring some of these issues, and one certain to come up at this meeting, is whether ICANN is a technical standards organization or one with far-reaching policy-making authority. Some of the problems that ICANN faces are based on misunderstandings of its limited power.

"They think it runs the Internet. It doesn't even run the infrastructure of the Internet. It doesn't really have much of an administrative role. This is reality," said Esther Dyson, former chairperson of the ICANN board and currently chairwoman of EDventure Holdings in New York. ICANN sets policy, and the administration is done by people like registry operators, she said.