Evan wrote:
I believe that Beau is saying that legitimate proxy services are OK but that there must be a path to lead to a real source.
Yes, that's what CR WebWatch is saying, and me, too. Thanks once again for your eloquence, Evan. -----Original Message----- From: Evan Leibovitch [mailto:evan@telly.org] Sent: Tuesday, July 10, 2007 11:02 PM To: Bret Fausett Cc: At-Large writ small; Brendler, Beau Subject: Re: [At-Large] Updates on the WHOIS WG Bret Fausett wrote
Ask that same person whether his minor daughter should be required to publish her accurate contact data (name, address, email address, telephone number) in a publicly accessible database as a condition of getting an email address, a weblog, or a homepage, and he'll scream "NO!" This is overreaction, judging from the thickness of my local telephone directory. Most people have no problem being tracked down to their phone number or address.
People who get Internet access generally do so through an ISP that records fairly detailed information, at least enough for billing purposes, as well as usually an agreement to the ISP's terms of service. Such information is not _publicly_ available, but it's available with a warrant. While I am loathe to get dragged into "what about the children?" analogies, let's go with the one you used. If that minor daughter is engaging in on-line bullying of other kids or other kinds of threats, you're darned right that I want that activity tracable regardless of how loud she or her parents may scream. Privacy measures must never prevent people from facing the consequences of their actions. And being underage does not mean one is incapable of -- or should automatically escape responsibility for -- doing some pretty nasty stuff... The situation is no different for domains. I believe that Beau is saying that legitimate proxy services are OK but that there must be a path to lead to a real source. - Evan *** Scanned