The Whois database, where the contact details of domain registrants are held publicly, has long been a cause of tension. The disputes arise between civil rights campaigners who object to the compulsory disclosure of personal information, and solicitors and law enforcers who find this information invaluable for assistance with the investigation of fraud and other crimes online.

ICANN have proposed an Operational Point of Contact (OPoC), where registrants of Domain Names would be required to list only one contact's email address, telephone number and postal details. Currently, domains are listed with the names of a technical contact and an administrative contact, as well as the name of the domain registrant. These two additional contacts are required to disclose their personal contact details. Primary and secondary servers are also listed.

At a recent Whois Working Group meeting, there were many questions left unanswered about the OPoC proposal. There was much debate over whether the new single contacts should face penalties if they failed to respond quickly to notification of critical matters. The question of what the responsibilities of the contacts would be was also left without a definitive answer.

Critics argue that the proposed system would reduce accountability on the internet and make Domain Registration more difficult and daunting for small businesses and personal website owners. What is more, a lot of information which is important to the protection of internet users against crime would be lost. This information, it is argued, should be available to the public. Spam and other problems caused by the public nature of the database could be reduced by introducing a charge for looking up Whois data.