Re: [ga] Net-block issues

["William S. Lovell" <wsl@cerebalaw.com>]

(See near the bottom)

Sandy Harris wrote:

> William X Walsh wrote:
> >
> > Registries should not be involved in MAPS like operations at all.
> >
> > You can't seriously be suggesting that?
> >
> > MAPS is not a functionality, it is a disfunctionality, and if it is to
> > exist at all, it should be managed privately.
>
> I agree, but ...
>
> > Wednesday, Wednesday, August 15, 2001, 8:38:35 AM, Roeland Meyer wrote:
> > > The fundimental process disconnect here is that, IMHO, the various
> > > registries should be performing the MAPS function as part of their policy
> > > enforcement mechanism. This is not written into any of the
> > > registrar/registry agreements.
> >
> > > If anything argues for a centralised systems approach, the MAPS
> > > functionality does. IMHO, this makes it an ICANN issue. Yes, this also
> > > politicizes it somewhat. No, some NANOG denizens won't like it and that is
> > > guaranteed.
>
> There's an important tradition among systems administrators, that they will
> deal with "abuse OF the net", but not with "abuse ON the net". I think this
> is valid and worth preserving.
>
> For example, any sane ISP has something in their terms of service agreement
> that lets them disconnect spammers. They must be able to do this in order
> to protect other systems' users from spam.
>
> On the other hand, an ISP or a registry should not be acting against its
> customers for anything other than direct abuse OF the network. There are
> laws against libel, trademark misuse, stalking, harassment, some types of
> pornography, 'hate literature', slander, software 'piracy', ...
>
> All these forms of abuse ON the net are better dealt with by police and
> courts than by system admins. Courts have legal authority to act on these
> issues, experience and expertise, protections for the accused, standards
> of evidence, ... Neither ISPs nor registries have any of those.
>
> There may be some exceptions for extremely blatant violators, where an
> ISP or registry might reasonably help stop abuse, but when there is any
> doubt at all, they should give their customers the benefit of that doubt.
>
> So, while I feel that having registries disconnect spammers is not a good
> idea (mainly because I don't trust ICANN to come up with good guidelines
> and NSI are themselves spammers), I do think you can make a far better
> case for that than for having them try to enforce trademark restrictions.

All of the above hangs together perfectly.  It also leads to the key question,
though.  Copying the phrase "Courts have legal authority to act on these
issues, experience and expertise, protections for the accused, standards
of evidence, ... Neither ISPs nor registries have any of those," a complete
statement would be made if one added ICANN along with ISPs and
registries, and with specific emphasis on trademarks.  ICANN, with its
UDRP and other policy meddling, suffers from the same lack of legal
authority, experience and expertise, protections for the 'accused,'
standards of evidence, and soforth.

Bill Lovell

>
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The URLs for Best Practices:
DNSO Citation:
http://www.dnso.org/dnso/gaindex.html
(Under "Other Information Documents"; "August 2001:
Proposal for Best Practices for the DNSO GA")
Part I:
http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/20010813.GA-BestPractices.html
Part II:
http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/20010813.GA-BP-flowchart.pdf
(Access to the .pdf file requires installing the Adobe Acrobat
Reader, which is available for free down load at
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html.)


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