...seem to be widely mis-understood.

There seems to be a common misconception that all the "interesting" things about WHOIS are being introduced by these new policies, such as accuracy obligations, cancellation of domain names on the basis of inaccurate data, or even public access to WHOIS data. This is, of course, not true: All these elements are part of the existing policy environment, and have been around for several years now.

The changes introduced by the new consensus policies are fairly limited, and don't affect the fundamental principles underlying today's WHOIS services:

• Registrars will at least annually inform registrants about their WHOIS data, tell them about their obligations, and give them an opportunity to correct any bad data. Registrants can choose to just ignore that notice.
• The redemption grace period shall apply when an accuracy complaint process leads to the deletion of a domain name, but with some safeguards. There will be some adjustments to this particular policy in the near future. This new policy deals with domain names which may be deleted under *existing* rules.
• Bulk access to WHOIS data for marketing purposes is forbidden.
• Resale of WHOIS data obtained under registrars' bulk access agreement is forbidden.

Yup, folks, that's all...