RE: [ga] A story about Whois and privacy

["Abel Wisman" <abel@able-towers.com>]

As a former member of the WHOIS TF (dissolved) I have done my utmost to
get the discussion on that TF to the one important matter preceding all
other matters: privacy.

I based my opinion on personal believes and the law in a large part of
the world, common sense and need.

I posted this opinion several times to the whois TF list, and copied
some of that to the GA list (last large base opinion was posted to both
and can be read here:
http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/nc-whois/Arc00/msg00602.html

It remains my opinion what I wrote there, nonetheless getting that
opinion in the reports produced was even as a dissenting opinion hardly
possible.
Up and until the final product, I have tried to push for definition of
terms, that again gets overlooked in the staff issue report, and the
legitimacy of the claims made by those who think they are "entitled" to
access (IP constituency, law representatives) as if there were no other
means of getting the domain registrants data ( like normal law
proceedings ).

See: http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/nc-whois/Arc00/msg00979.html

After that a FTC document was brought up, which was later overshadowed
by a FTC Staff opinion document, which opposed the prior document but
again I ventilated my opinion in:
http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/nc-whois/Arc00/msg00987.html

And finally when "accuracy" was an item again I pushed for my dissenting
opinion as to the nonsense of responsibilty for this non-accurate data :
http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/nc-whois/Arc00/msg00667.html
Nonsense because the registrar HAS the correct data, or in the case
where he uses "agents" the agent has to have the correct data.
This leaves open the fact that the data should not be public, there is
NO legitimate reason for publishing personal data to the world.

Having this data readily available to anyone or even law enforcement
alone without proper warrant leaves to much room for vigilante and has a
very direct impact on freedom of speech in all those places in the world
where that accounts for something.

Nonetless CRISP moves on to (what VGRS hopes) to be a "handy" tool to do
cross TLD searches to gather even more data and even faster, though it
is even far less visible to me what a law enforcement officer in
Argentine needs with my personal data if I in the EU write that I think
they are a "doubtfull" governement.

The overall power and hand of the IP constituency becomes more and more
visible, not only in UDRP, US courts and UK courts, now also in Dtuch
courts where a judge with absolutely no knowledge on the topic of
internet and domains ruled that "netscape" has a right to "netschaap"
(translation: netsheep).
All this and the courtcases against so-called illegal filesharing take
away the eye from an industry which does more to surpress the masses
then anyone else in this world. They force(d) artists out of rights,
they decide what we listen to and they they decide what we read.
Thank anyone for the independent movements that keep us informed on what
else is made out there and the p2p networks that keep that source alive.

Keeping the whois data public only serves the industry, governments,
criminals and stalkers of the world, no one else.

Abel 



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