Re: [alac] GAO Report on Domain Names

["John R Levine" <johnl@xxxxxxxx>]

> I think that you need to make a difference between collecting reliable
> information on the owner of a domain name, and exposing it freely to the
> entire world.

Good point.

> But I also think there's some principle-level sensitivity involved in
> this: apparently, in the US your privacy is a service you buy, while in
> most of the rest of the world your privacy is a human right that you own
> already and others have to abide by. Being required to pay additional
> money to preserve your privacy, to European eyes, is pure extortion.

I have considerable sympathy for the European viewpoint, but this gets to
the important question of whether registering a domain is more like buying
a car or buying a pencil.  To me the arguments for anonymous domain
ownership are about as unpersuasive as arguments for anonymous car
ownership.  A domain is at most a convenience for personal use of the net,
hardly a necessity.  As with car ownership, if you want to use a nominee,
you can, but your nominee takes responsibility for it.

Your domain, for example, is a subdomain of eu.org and I presume there is
no way to connect it to you without their help.  That's fine so long as
eu.org understands that if you do something awful, they're on the hook for
it.

Regards,
John Levine, johnl@xxxxxxxx, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://www.johnlevine.com, Mayor
"I shook hands with Senators Dole and Inouye," said Tom, disarmingly.