Re: [ga] scammers using whois privacy

[Karl Auerbach <karl@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

kidsearch wrote:
> Answers below under yours Karl.

>  > Ask any women who has been stalked by someone using whois data.  Ask any
>  > person who is afraid to write about an illness because they are afraid
>  > of losing anonymity.  Ask any person who is willing to speak about an
>  > unpopular subject as long as they can do so without being identified.
>  
> *Ask any person who has had their money ripped off by unscrupulous 
> website owners who hide their information to avoid anyone knowing who to 
> sue or who to report for fraud and theft.*

The difference is that the women who were stalked, the people who were 
in fear of speaking on unpopular topics had to make a kind of Sophie's 
Choice - as the price of using becoming an effective speaker on the 
internet, ICANN is requiring that they give up their privacy.

In your situation you have an easy self-cure that does not have the 
draconian side effects - you could simply refrain from doing business 
with vendors that don't meet your disclosure standards.

As for your comment about not knowing who to sue - the legal system is 
well equipped to deal with that.  Essentially you sue unidentified 
persons and, during the early stages, you get the ability to obtain 
subpoenas, supervised by a neutral judge, that will allow you to open up 
the otherwise close books of who has registered what domain names. 
Notice is given and an opportunity to object and make a defensive 
argument before a nautral judge is given.  If the subpoena is then 
sustained and once the identity is confirmed, the complaint is amended 
to substitute the names of the real defendants.

You are suggesting a means to solve a problem that has too many bad side 
effects (i.e. the loss of everyone's privacy) when you have a perfectly 
good option, that of being buyer who demands certain information from 
sellers, that has no such side effects.

Now, you may be trying to speak on behalf of others who are not as 
discerning as yourself - there are a lot of people who will jump on any 
proffered bargain from even the most suspect of vendors.  But that 
raises a different question: Are we engaging in internet governance, 
particularly internet technical governance, or are we engaging in 
consumer protection?

My own sense is that turning ICANN into a consumer protection agency 
(ICANN is already a trademark-owner protection agency) is a big step 
down a very wrong road.

		--karl--