Form Closed: Comment period ended February 15, 2008

Submitted By:
[Please provide your name and affiliation. Please also provide contact information (optional) so that we may contact you to obtain further information about your suggestion, if needed. This information will be used only by ICANN staff. It will not be visible to others and will not be used for any other purpose.]

1. Topic for study:
[Please describe in a single phrase or sentence the topic of study you think should be conducted. Please use a separate form for each topic.]

2. Hypothesis/theory that would drive the study:
[List the driving hypothesis/theory behind such a study. You might have multiple hypotheses.]

3. How could this hypothesis be falsified?
[Please describe how this hypothesis could be proven invalid.]

4. How could the study results lead to an improvement in the WHOIS system that could be adopted by consensus policy?

5. The type of study needed:
[Please describe the kind of study that you think should be conducted, for example, a market analysis of proxy services; a quantitative study of how many registrants are natural persons; a legal comparison of different privacy regimes.]

6. Specifics about the data that would need to be collected, including sources of data:
[Please list each data element separately. For each data element, please provide suggested sources for that data and anticipated challenges that might be encountered in obtaining or collecting such data.]

7. Population to be surveyed:
[If this is a survey study, describe the population to be surveyed. If it is a study that involves collecting empirical data from a sample of domains, registrars, or other entities, describe the population to be sampled.]

8. What sample size is available/necessary?
[If this study involves surveying or sampling a population, what sample size is necessary to draw a valid conclusion? If you advocate surveying an entire population (for example, all registrars), what response rate would be needed to draw a valid conclusion? Please explain how you determined the necessary sample size. If you are not certain how to determine a statistically valid sample size, please provide as much information as you can to help us make this determination. For example, if you know about other studies that sampled a similar population, please let us know. Any educated guesses about the kind of results you expect will also help us determine the necessary sample size -- for example, if your hypothesis is that two populations are significantly different in a particular characteristic, tell us what you would expect the mean value of that characteristic to be for each of the two populations.]

9. Types of analysis to be done once the data is collected: