[ga] Re: WHOIS accuracy, and name deletions

[Robert L Mathews <lists@tigertech.com>]

At 1/7/03 10:03 AM, Derek J. Balling wrote:

>For the same reason it's always been a problem. People need to be able 
>to find and contact the domain-holder in the event of a problem, etc.

<opposing_opinion>

Since it's my traditional role to object to this opinion whenever it 
comes up on the OpenSRS list, I feel compelled to point out for the 
record that some of us strongly feel:

- that it is not a problem;
- that public WHOIS is an artifact of the pre-1993 Internet, where
  holding a domain was usually equivalent to running the various services
  for it and indicated some kind of commitment to the community;
- that nowadays, people who hold domains are unlikely to run the services
  for them or feel responsible to the community -- or if they do run the
  services and there's a problem with that domain, they are probably the
  cause of that problem, so there's little point in complaining to them;
- that contact data provided to registrars would be more accurate if it
  were reasonably private, because many otherwise innocent people provide
  inaccurate data simply for privacy reasons;
- that anyone who is actually a "bad guy" is likely to provide bad data
  anyway, and that if the policy changes to drop domains with obviously
  invalid WHOIS data like "Mickey Mouse", it's trivially easy to start
  providing false data that doesn't appear blatantly bad;
- that when my customers first become aware of the fact that their
  information is publicly available, almost all of them are appalled,
  and a few have even canceled their registrations as a result (in one
  extreme case, a customer was a witness to a murder who had kept his
  address secret for years for fear of retaliation, then happened to find
  it was available to anyone with a Web browser after registering his
  domain name);
- that since the gross privacy violations of public WHOIS far outweigh
  the benefits, public WHOIS should therefore be completely abolished,
  with WHOIS data available only to people who actually need it
  (registrars, law enforcement, etc.), much like driver's license
  records are now only available to insurance companies, law enforcement,
  and so forth.

I can't be bothered to argue the reasons in more detail yet again; see my 
past OpenSRS discuss-list posts on this subject in the unlikely event 
anyone is interested.

</opposing_opinion>

--
Robert L Mathews, Tiger Technologies

"A professional in an ape mask is still a professional." -Marge Simpson

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