Namecoin is essentially an alternative root solution so it wouldn't solve the public DNS issues that the EWG looked at I don't think.
Bitcoin could be used to pay for a domain anonymously in either system yes.

Also namecoin had some serious security flaws and still to this day is risky in my opinion http://www.coindesk.com/namecoin-flaw-patch-needed/ 

I think that using the block chain is not where research in this area should go, I think we should take some of the concepts and learnings from what we have seen in bitcoin and apply it to the existing concept of DNS, things like distributed root tables, continuous verification, peer based trust relationships are all concepts that are in early maturity due to bitcoin but lets not jump on the 'bitcoin is the solution to all problems' bandwagon. Bitcoin solved a single issue and was never designed to do more than that, jumping onto it and frankensteining new ideas can lead to some serious flaws in concept and implementation.

As you can probably guess I'm 50/50 on Bitcoin and its realism and goals on the greater economic markets. I was a very early adopter back in the day before it took off and like many got burned during its infancy which drove me away to being an observer for a number of years. 
But also I might be bitter about the cold wallet I lost that had about 20BTC in it that I lost many years ago (Worth over 20k at the top of the market) so take my comments with a large pinch of salt! :-)

-James

-----Original Message-----
From: NCSG-Discuss [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Stephanie Perrin
Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2015 7:14 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Query: WhoIS and BlockChain Technology

So does this mean that the proposal we had for anonymous domain registration (in the Experts Working Group report on WHOIS replacement) is more doable, at least with respect to solving the anonymous payment issue?  There still has to be a proxy WHOIS entry, which I presume still requires a separate track.
Stephanie Perrin

On 2015-06-11 13:41, Andrew A. Adams wrote:
> Sam,
>
> There is a fork of the bitcoin blockchain specifically designed with 
> this in
> mind:
>
> https://namecoin.info/
>
>
> There has been also some academic work on using blockchain for domain 
> name concepts. See:
>
> Providing better confidentiality and authentication on the Internet 
> using Namecoin and MinimaLT Frederic Jacobs
> http://arxiv.org/abs/1407.6453
>
>
> Peer-to-Peer Networking and Applications April 2015 Difficulty control 
> for blockchain-based consensus systems Daniel Kraft 
> http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12083-015-0347-x
>
>