Re: [alac] Proposed ALAC restatement on WHOIS (draft2)

[Vittorio Bertola <vb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 28 Oct 2003 06:25:49 -0800, you wrote:

>I've revised this to account for comments from Ken and Thomas (the only 
>comments I've heard since posting last Thursday).  If committee members 
>agree, can we post this tomorrow, when the WHOIS discussions will be taking 
>place in Carthage?

Sure. I really like this document. Only suggestion (you know, it's my pet
point):

>One simple solution, requiring no new infrastructure, would be to make all
>data fields in WHOIS optional, allowing domain name registrants themselves
>to make the choice between contactability and privacy.  A more complete
>solution would also permit registrants to give accurate information to their
>registrars without putting that into the generally-accessible WHOIS (the
>online equivalent of an unlisted telephone number).

I would then add something like "By the way, a specific written consent of
the individual registrant to the publication of his/her personal data is
required under the privacy legislations of many countries; any practically
useful WHOIS system should implement simple ways for registrants to give or
deny such consent."

I'd also like to add somewhere the other point I made this morning when
discussing with the non-commercials - the fact that it is pointless to
require more accuracy when users often don't have a simple system to access
and update their data. Often you buy your domain name through a reseller of
a reseller of a registrar, then you move the name, or you lose the e-mail
address you used for registration, or whatever... and you're not able to
access and update your data any more. And this gets more difficult once you
have domains in 3-4 different TLDs. Not sure about the practical solution,
but at least we could raise the problem. (But I'd like to release this
tomorrow morning, so if we can't do it, it's fine).
-- 
vb.               [Vittorio Bertola - v.bertola [a] bertola.eu.org]<------
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