RJGlass | America@Large wrote:
It is this reason that we should discuss this issue and encourage ICANN follow a certain path. This highlights the responsibility to our constituency. This is not just a legal issue, it's beyond that. Rather, there are moral ramifications across borders.
The GNSO is about to come to yet another impasse on the Whois issue at the upcoming meeting. Recognizing this, I have proposed a motion to the GNSO Council that essentially states "Recognizing that there is no community consensus on Whois policy, the GNSO recommends that ICANN sunset all Registry/Registrar whois requirements [within one year? or something like that..]" If carried and accepted by the board, I believe this motion would have the effect of changing the incentives for the intellectual property, law enforcement and intransigent registry/registrar community such that they would be more threatened by losing their precious status quo and therefore more inclined to engage in good faith policy negotiations with one another. This is not happening now. I fully expect that this motion will also fail to pass. However, I believe it will be important for the ICANN Board and the GNSO to hear clearly that ICANN is failing to protect the rights and interests of registrants and users. They must hear that it is no longer tolerable to sacrifice the interests of registrants and users in order to placate the Hollywood and Washington. ICANN needs more than encouragement on this issue. It needs to hear from a strong, clear and unified voice that the status quo is no longer acceptable and in the absence of measurable progress, must immediately curb the rampant privacy abuse that comes from the maintenance of this unnecessary and unwanted service. For those of you that remain unconvinced that Whois abuse is commonplace, here is a great blog post by an unlicensed data miner who feels secure enough in the current regulatory environment to come out of the closet and offer subscription based access to your data... http://blog.domaintools.com/2007/10/registrant-search/ -r