RE: [dow1-2tf] RE: WSJ story re Whois and proxy services

["Steven J. Metalitz IIPA" <metalitz@xxxxxxxx>]

Marc, one way to find out if your impression is wrong is to do the
research proposed by TF2.  This is one of the questions that would be
addressed. 

Regarding e-mail forwarding, note the following recommendation of TF2,
in the same section of its preliminary report (immediately following the
passage I quoted in my earlier post):  

Further work should also be conducted on the feasibility of requiring
registrars to provide e-mail forwarding services to registrants, and the
impact of such a requirement upon registrant privacy and contactability.
As a first step, the research agenda outlined above could be expanded to
study the operation of such services to the extent they exist today.   

Steve Metalitz

 

-----Original Message-----
From: marc@xxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:marc@xxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Marc
Schneiders
Sent: Thursday, September 30, 2004 2:06 PM
To: Steven J. Metalitz IIPA
Cc: dow1-2tf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [dow1-2tf] RE: WSJ story re Whois and proxy services 

On Thu, 30 Sep 2004, at 11:41 [=GMT-0400], Steven J. Metalitz IIPA
wrote:

> The WSJ article asserts that these services are becoming increasingly 
> popular, and that 5% of "new registrants" are using these services.
> In light of this I suggest that we re-visit the question of whether it

> would be productive to find out more about how these services, which 
> apparently are becoming an important part of the Whois landscape, 
> actually operate.

No, I do not support the idea to research this as part of our TF work.
My impression is, that these cloaking services provide little extra
privacy. The terms of registrars that I read, state that the cloaking
service provider gives up details to anyone saying they have a legal
issue (to avoid being sued themselves). If I would like to get the
details of a woman I want to stalk, I am sure I find a lawyer who gets
these for me for a moderate fee. Read e.g. Enom's terms. If my
impression is wrong, I'd like to learn which cloaking services protect a
registrant as far as a court order. I mean that they don't give up the
details unless there is a court order. (Sorry I am not a lawyer and
English is not my native language.)

In my view cloaking is a secondary solution. We should not need it.
Why ask people to pay extra money to remain private? Should this not be
solved by us in stead of the market? Why do we demand people to give up
their privacy?

If there is a serious legal issue, the courts will provide access to the
whois details. In my view that is it. I know there are serious trademark
and other intellectual property issues that could more easily and less
costly (also for the registrant) be resolved if whois data remain
public. I think, however, that it is the choice of the domain name
registrant to publish her or his details.

Another option might be (perhaps it has been suggested before), that
email messages could be passed on through a registrant by the registrar
or registry. The email address would then remain private, but contact
would be possible. This would be a low level entry for lawyers.

Marc