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information such as an individual's name, address, and telephone number. However, as a result of changes ad- opted in 2005, a new WHOIS policy relating to individuals is scheduled for implementation early in June. Under the new policy, CIRA will continue to collect the same information as before. However, citing privacy requirements in the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), it will no longer make the personal infor- mation of individual registrants, admin- istrative contacts, or technical contacts publicly available through the WHOIS lookup directory without consent. In the privacy area, David Young, co- chairman of the privacy group at Lang Michener LLP, says the changes look like a voluntary approach to comply with PIPEDA, and while it is not clear whether CIRA is governed by the legis- lation, it has decided to make the move anyway. The main motivation for the policy could be to try to stop potential spam e-mail businesses from accessing the contact information in the database and marketing it to domain name regis- trants, he says. For IP lawyers who may have clients with a concern or complaint about a web site, there is now the question of how to find out who is operating the site, says Jonathan Colombo, managing partner of Bereskin & Parr, who was also involved in drafting the International Trademark Association's submissions on the policy, filed in January 2005, and in drafting submissions on CIRA's pro- posed implementation procedures, filed in September 2006. Previously, says Peter Giddens, an IP lawyer with Lang Michener, the search gave a fair amount of information about who the registrant is and how to con- tact them regarding the possibility of infringement of someone's existing IP rights. "The issue for a trademark lawyer who wants to issue a cease-and-desist letter, for example, because the domain name contains a third-party trademark is, well, how do I know who I'm sending it to," adds Eric Macramalla, a partner at Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP. He adds that the ability to get the letter to the person, and then to know whether 48 M AY 2008 www. C ANADIAN mag.com