Re: [dow3tf] TR: Industries/Companies to Survey Practices of Other OnlineService Providers

[sarah.b.deutsch@xxxxxxxxxxx]

I don't agree with you -- given that I worked on the RIAA case together
with the entire ISP community in the US for the past 18 months and saw
exactly what was transpiring.   Our records were accurate, matching
customer name, address and phone number to IP address, which is exactly why
RIAA wanted to exploit the form subpoena process in the first place.  They
threatened thousands of users and brought suit against hundreds of others
before the Court put a stop to it.  Law enforcement uses the ISP records as
well to go after criminals. On the transaction point, although AOL and MSN
may have millions of subscribers, most ISPs are relatively small.

But even assuming you are correct and ISP accounts are filled with
inaccurate data, why would you be suggesting that they be used as an
industry benchmark for collecting best practices for data accuracy?  Using
my two children as an example, I'm sure my son would want me to benchmark
the messiness of his sister's room as justification for why he doesn't need
to clean his, but that argument doesn't fly at my house...


Sarah B. Deutsch
Vice President & Associate General Counsel
Verizon Communications
Phone: 703-351-3044
Fax:      703-351-3670
sarah.b.deutsch@xxxxxxxxxxx




                                                                                                                                       
                      "Ross Wm. Rader"                                                                                                 
                      <ross@xxxxxxxxxx>        To:       Sarah B. Deutsch/EMPL/VA/Verizon@VZNotes                                      
                                               cc:       3DOW3tf <dow3tf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, owner-dow3tf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx                  
                      01/12/2004 10:48         Subject:  Re: [dow3tf] TR: Industries/Companies to Survey Practices of Other            
                      AM                        OnlineService Providers                                                                
                      Please respond to                                                                                                
                      ross                                                                                                             
                                                                                                                                       
                                                                                                                                       




On 1/12/2004 10:21 AM sarah.b.deutsch@xxxxxxxxxxx noted that:

> I think you'll find ISPs' records quite accurate as evidenced
> by the RIAA's recent efforts (just rejected by the Court of Appeals in
the
> Verizon case)  to collect subscriber information in a form subpoena from
> ISPs.

Actually RIAA's experience with Verizon was quite exceptional. In 1999,
up to 25% of an average ISPs accounts were in question as a result of
poor processes and bad or inaccurate data. I suspect that this has
improved over the last few years, but if the experiences of the
telecommunications sector is any indication (as evidenced by the article
below), it hasn't.

"Sloppy processes and a lack of focused investment are costing the
world's service providers anything up to $137 billion in lost revenues
each year, according to the findings of a survey into "revenue leakage"
conducted by telecom consultancy Analysys.

And it seems to be a growing problem. The amount being lost to poor
processes, bad credit management, fraud, incorrect call data records
(CDRs), and interconnect errors has risen since the same survey was
conducted in 2001. Two years ago, the loss was estimated to be worth
12.4 percent of total revenues."
 - http://www.boardwatch.com/document.asp?doc_id=45306

>  ISPs,
> while they sign customers up for service and have accurate customer
> records, are not receiving the same number of online transactions as some
> registrars.

Actually its quite the opposite. Global internet subscription vastly
exceeds global domain registration - AOL and MSN alone do more
transactions just signing people up and renewing them than every single
CNO registrar combined.

As an additional note, I just noticed that Verisign is specifically
singled out on the list of survey prospects. Why? Are they doing
something special that we need to dig on?



--

                        -rwr








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