RE: [registrars] POTENTIAL LEGAL PITFALL

["Michael D. Palage" <michael@palage.com>]

Ross,

Just so there is no misunderstanding, I have been a vocal proponent of
getting the GAC involved in a constructive manner to assist in resolving
some globally complex problems, i.e. Whois and fraud. Please refer to my
various statements over the past year.

With regard to your statement about the FTC not doing you (I assume your
employer TUCOWS) not much good, last time I checked  TUCOWS was a US
corporation, although your principal offices are in Canada. I could be wrong
as I have not read your last security filings.

I do not know what short-term political agenda you refer to. As previously
stated, the Registrars have sought to work with law enforcement since its
inception, i.e. Spring 2000 meeting the FBI and DOJ, FTC meeting last Fall.
For the past 6 months I have been trying to raise an awareness for credit
card fraud. In addition, I continue to hear about various bills (proposed US
legislation) that will be introduced this year that will have strick Whois
accuracy provisions. For those registrars that would like, I could provide a
copy of my testimony before the US House Judiciary last Spring where I tried
to identify some of the short comings in the proposed legislation. Although
I believe registrars have a contractual duty to ensure data accuracy, doing
so must be done in a responsible manner which takes into account a
cost/benefit analysis.

My long term agenda since I began providing leadership to this constituency
almost 4 years ago has been to proactively address situations, instead of
reactively. There are a lot of users out there that do not speak highly of
registrars, on a regular basis I try to dispell these misconceptions. All
registrars are not created equal, however, some are more responsible than
others. In total, I believe that most registrars are responsible small
business men and women trying to make a living and I will continue to
advance their common interests even after I conclude my current term as
Chair.

Mike


> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-registrars@dnso.org [mailto:owner-registrars@dnso.org]On
> Behalf Of Ross Wm. Rader
> Sent: Tuesday, February 25, 2003 10:14 AM
> To: registrars@dnso.org
> Cc: michael@palage.com
> Subject: RE: [registrars] POTENTIAL LEGAL PITFALL
>
>
>
> > one Friday and which I posted to the list yesterday. On Slide
> > #25 you will see the Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 USC 1681
> > et seq. Under this act you may be committing a violation of
> > the law if you compile fraudulent credit card information and
> > use it inappropriately. THIS IS SERIOUS STUFF.
>
> 15 USC 1681 deals with standards for credit reporting by consumer
> reporting agencies and likely other things. I think the point here is
> that individual registrars need to consult competent legal counsel
> before the engaging in new business methods or partnerships.
>
> Fair.
>
> With that being said, the FTC is but one agency and it doesn't do Bhavin
> or BobC or Me much good that US law enforcement is going to catch some
> bad guys for their constituents. Putting the FTC at the forefront of any
> constituency effort likely not only violates our constituency charter,
> but doesn't get us all that far down the road towards solving the core
> problem, which, as I see it, is this;
>
> Registrars are getting financially hammered by fraud. We need to
> ameliorate this with better law, better practice and better policy.
>
> Better practice. The email that you quoted is a great example best
> practices that registrars can implement to cut their losses. We need to
> do more in the way of education - perhaps someone from First Data,
> Paymentech and Cybersource would volunteer to do a panel discussion at
> our next meeting and share some tips to minimize fraud and chargebacks.
> In my experience they are more than willing to work with merchants,
> especially large groups of merchants.
>
> Better law. We have relatively easy access to the GAC. We should use it
> more effectively. Outside of GNSO channels, we should be wary of mission
> creep unless we wilfully determine that our charter is too narrow and
> amend it.
>
> Better policy. Bhavin and others have put forward some great ideas. We
> need to refine and adopt these proposals as positions that will allow us
> to work with the registries. As I mentioned, it doesn't much help that
> we are usually talking to ourselve, so anything that we can do to bring
> the registries to the table with a position in hand is helpful.
>
> If we can narrow scope to what we can effectively deal with rather than
> the short-term political agenda of any particular faction, we should be
> able to come up with a series of solutions that prefers our interests.
>
>
>                        -rwr
>
>
>
>
> "There's a fine line between fishing and standing on the shore like an
> idiot."
> - Steven Wright
>
> Get Blog... http://www.byte.org/
>
>