On 12/15/2009 07:51 AM, Beau Brendler wrote:
Karl, you wrote:
"well established legal due processes and protections."
And in the case of a Russian-mob operated chain of sites that sell vicodin (or a version thereof) all over the world to anyone who will pay, using registrations obtained in the US with false WHOIS data, where exactly is the "well established legal due processes and protections"?
If you think the activity is illicit then make a complaint to law enforcement. Don't turn ICANN into the Protocol Police.
You also wrote:
"ICANN is being used as a private hired gun through which everyone from the trademark industry to "consumer advocates" are trying to create an e-vigilante shortcut"
Nice, though rather dated, rhetorical flourish,
Should I have said "iVigilante"? but I think we are
talking about encouraging the contracted-party-dominated ICANN community to abide by and enforce its own policies or contractual provisions on WHOIS data.
There is certainly no agreement that whois is even a valid system at all. It is a system that has nearly zero technical operational value and exists only because it is a carry-forward of the kind of club-roster that we used back in the early 1970's. If you want to create a system of internet business licenses, feel free to propose it. Once you've looked at the umpteenth one of
these types of sites protected by private proxy registration, you get a little bit discouraged.
That's why law enforcement has investigatory powers, but those powers are subject to a body of due-process constraints. There is much danger is allowing the kind of power to an actor, such as ICANN, that is not constrained by due process or ill equipped to act as a private law enforcement body - just look at Xe, nee Blackwater. For instance, there are a lot of scientology folks out there who would love for you to succeed in your endeavor - because next year they will follow the road you are creating to have ICANN locate and punish noisy skeptics. And some of the highly radical anti-abortion crowd would just love to use ICANN to find the personal information about certain doctors and their staff. ICANN's role is to assure that the internet domain name system is stable, meaning that DNS query packets are accurately, quickly, and reliably turned into DNS response packets. We already have law enforcement and consumer protection agencies with powers and procedures to deal with the issue you raise. If they are not solving the problem you perceive, then fix them. But don't break ICANN. --karl--