On 01/19/2011 02:13 PM, Patrick Vande Walle wrote:
Agree. Those who want information on domain name owners have to show their credentials.
But again this protection has a cost. The registrar and/or the registry would have to process these requests and would transfer the costs to the registrants.
The registry or registrar (as appropriate for the business model) could require the person making the inquiry to pay an access fee. A couple of years ago I suggested that those who make inquiries might fall into certain classes: - Those who make a lot of inquiries as part of a business practice. This would perhaps include intellectual property protection attorneys. - Those who make a medium level of inquiries but not necessarily in a business context. This could encompass those who are semi-professional anti-spam/anti-net fraud fighters. - The j-random internet user who just wants to take an occasional look. Much of the cost of making an inquiry is that of identifying the person asking for the data. Those in the first two categories can arrange to pre-identify themselves and thus greatly reduce the per-inquiry costs that ought to be charged. This does not obviate the possible need for a charge that exists simply to slow-down those who would abuse the system through mass inquiries. --karl--