I was not able to make the call -- my apologies. Consumers Union's position on Whois, which I have not stated publicly for this group: We are not in favor of anonymous registrations. We would support some registrant privacy-protecting alternatives -- one internal suggestion is that domain escrow services possibly should list themselves as the (a) domain owner(s), and of course be mandated to make records accountable/accessible to law enforcement. We believe law enforcement agencies should have quick access to the entire WHOIS record with appropriate due process. We also believe the quality of WHOIS data should be improved so it is more useful. Consumers Union represents about 7 million consumers in the U.S. and Canada. Demographically we have not sliced the salami so specifically as this, but: our constituency is primarily concerned about being ripped off, spammed or phished. Probably a very small percentage would register or have registered a domain name (which is a piece of survey research I am suggesting we do internally), and therefore very few would care about registrants' privacy rights. We have been involved with a number of international research and advocacy efforts and, speaking very generally, are strongly supportive of the European privacy system/model. My personal views happen to be the same as my organization's. Regards, Beau Brendler -----Original Message----- From: alac-bounces@atlarge-lists.icann.org [mailto:alac-bounces@atlarge-lists.icann.org] On Behalf Of Vittorio Bertola Sent: Tuesday, July 10, 2007 9:32 AM To: Wendy Seltzer Cc: At-Large writ small Subject: Re: [At-Large] Updates on the WHOIS WG Wendy Seltzer ha scritto:
As this is on the agenda for the WG's July 11 call, <http://forum.icann.org/lists/gnso-whois-wg/msg00491.html> it would be helpful if others who have been participating in the WG's work would also express their concerns, either on list or on the call.
I have been quite vocal in the Whois WG recently, both because I really care about the European privacy model, and because I thought that the concerns of a Board liaison might have some good weight in the group's discussions. Particularly, apart from the desire for privacy that we all share, as a European citizen I find it hard to bear the continuous affirmation of supernational authority and despise for other sovereignties that the IP constituencies try to push onto everyone else. They basically say that they don't care about whatever privacy laws the countries other than the U.S. might have, and they want ICANN to find a way to circumvent those laws. This hits hard not just on the specific right to privacy, but on the basic grounds of international law, and of mutual cultural respect. At the same time, there is, I think, a certain level of disagreement inside the ALAC. Personally, I am not in favour of entirely anonymous registrations, and I think that public law enforcement authorities (public, i.e. subject to due process requirements and public scrutiny and accountability) should have quick and unencumbered access to the entire Whois database. Whatever solution is implemented should not become an obstacle to timely investigation against phishing, spamming, etc., by public authorities (if they want to rely on private parties for help, that's their choice under their own responsibility). However, in the past we had some real discussion inside the ALAC on these points, and perhaps we should work out a common position on them. By the way:
The OPOC's responsibility was conceived as one to pass information along to the registrant, without requiring the registrant to list his or her direct contact information in public WHOIS. Somewhere along the way, the WG has given the OPOC an additional role of REVEALing information when a query is made but not responded to. This too seems
like an overextension and loss for privacy,
In Europe, in short, if the registrant is an individual, if the requesting party is not a public law enforcement agency (or falls into another limited set of cases foreseen by law), and if the registrant did not freely consent to this disclosure, REVEAL would be a criminal offence that could be punished with some years in jail. -- vb. Vittorio Bertola - vb [a] bertola.eu <-------- --------> finally with a new website at http://bertola.eu/ <-------- _______________________________________________ ALAC mailing list ALAC@atlarge-lists.icann.org http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/alac_atlarge-lists.icann .org At-Large Official Site: http://www.alac.icann.org ALAC Independent: http://www.icannalac.org *** Scanned