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

["Milton Mueller" <mueller@xxxxxxx>]

Paul:
No one that I know of assumes that growing use of proxy 
services or ID protection is attributable exclusively to crime or
evil do-ers. There is considerable demand for this among ordinary
domain name registrants, as the article makes clear. 
If this TF succeeds in rapidly implementing an effective warning/
notification system, that demand will grow. The more people
know about what certain lawyers and others do with their private
contact data, the more they will react in the predictable way -
by shielding the data. 

--MM


>>> Paul Stahura <stahura@xxxxxxxx> 10/01/04 12:29 PM >>>


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.

More information on the "5% of new registrants" number (though accurate)
in
the WSJ piece may show a different picture that what you assume.

Jay at Name Intel asked me for some data on eNom's ID protect.  He said
it
was for an article. The "new registration" numbers are skewed because
eNom
had a large company customer recently register 100,000 names (a
significant
percentage of new name registrations) and put them all on ID protect
while
they got ready to launch their product. I assume they did not want their
competitors to know they were doing this certain product.  Now that the
product is launched, they've removed the ID Protect.

This type of use (hiding business ventures before announcement, for
example,
exxonmobil.com was registered 5 days before the merger was announced)
might
explain why the "new registrants" percentage is larger than the "total"
percentage (if it even is when you remove the, probably, 1-time 100k
name
anomaly).  It may not be due to an increasing popularity trend by people
up
to no-good as you may have assumed. 


Paul