ICANN's long-winded debate about Whois privacy for domain registrants has stalled once again. Privacy advocates argue that individual domain registrants should not have to expose their personal details to the public when they register their domains, but companies, law enforcers and intellectual property holders claim that public access to the Whois database is vital for preventing fraud and copyright infringement.

ICANN has been discussing the problem of Whois privacy for years, but no conclusion has yet been reached. As well as the question of the relative importance of privacy and accountability, domain registrars add that the cost of additional security such as the Operational Point of Contact (OPoC) scheme that ICANN has suggested in the past could be prohibitive. Many registrars already offer their customers a proxy service which allows them to register their domains privately, and make considerable sums in the process. They would be unwilling to pass on the cost of additional security to their customers, information privacy experts note.