ICANN or ICANT: Is WHOIS an Enabler of Cybercrime?

WHOIS acts as a registry for organisations or individuals who "own" or take responsibility for domains. For any registry to be functional, its integrity needs to be assured. Unfortunately, WHOIS data does not appear to meet basic integrity requirements in many cases, reducing the effectiveness of law enforcement and rightsholders in requesting takedowns for phishing kits, zombie hosts that are part of a botnet, or infringing content. In this paper, we illustrate the problem using a case study from trademark protection, where investigators attempt to trace fake goods being advertised on Facebook. The results indicate that ICANN needs to at least introduce minimum verification standards for WHOIS records vis-à-vis integrity, and optimally, develop a system for rapid takedowns in the event that a domain is being misused.