PeaceNet Korea's Comments on Whois TF2 Preliminary Report

[Chun Eung Hwi <chun@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

In line with NCUC's proposal to strike section 3.7.7.3 of the RAA based on 
privacy and anonymity concerns, we strongly support to strike out the 
following specific sentence inter alia- "A Registered Name Holder 
licensing use of a Registered Name according to this provision shall 
accept liability for harm caused by wrongful use of the Registered Name, 
unless it promptly discloses the identity of the licensee to a party 
providing the Registered Name Holder reasonable evidence of actionable 
harm." Because this sentence could lead to misunderstanding or 
misinterpretation due to its use of vague and too comprehensive words like 
harm or wrongful use, but the fundamental purpose of whois should be 
rigidly limited to its technical function.

We support the recommendation that some process should be put in place to 
resolve the collision between ICANN RAA and national law. We believe this 
approach would foster the international market competition into the 
direction of protecting privacy rather than encouraging fraudulent 
registration. 

We agree that proxy service should be further explored in the direction of 
ensuring more privacy protection and the anonymous free speech.

We support the tiered access proposal in principle. Registrants should 
have the option to direct that some or all of their protected data be 
displayed to the public "on the opt-in basis " - default option is not to 
disclose the protected data. 

We think all requirements for legitimate use to access protected 
information should be more clearly defined and documented in RAA and 
Registration Contract so that such access could not be abused. In this TF2 
report, three plausible cases were mentioned as "being required by law or 
contract (e.g. the provision of contact to UDRP providers during a UDRP 
dispute, or to another registrar during a transfer)". Is there any other 
legitimate use? If not, even for Registry or Registrar, only transfer case 
would allow them to access to the specified transferring domain name's 
whois information. Even in other cases if any, who and whom to be allowed 
to access the information should also be clarified. 

In the present RAA, the voice telephone number of administrative and 
technical contact is one mandatory data element, which is different from 
fax number because it could be provided where available. However, this 
requirement could be very discriminatory given those societies where 
communication infrastructure is very poor but internet access is available 
in community center or electronic cafe. 

The idea of "false whois penalty" does not recognize the intentional false
registration for the protection of privacy, the mistaken error, and being
inaccurate depending on some change of circumstances. And the
over-emphasis on "the uniform whois requirements" is ignoring national
sovereignty and jurisdiction. The notion of "Universal Registrant ID" must
be privacy invasive and so very dangerous. We strongly oppose all these 
misconceptions or wrong thinking.


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Chun Eung Hwi
General Secretary, PeaceNet | phone:     (+82)  2-2166-2205
Seoul Yangchun P.O.Box 81   |   pcs:     (+82) 019-259-2667
Seoul, 158-600, Korea       | eMail:   chun@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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