public comment

[Ron Baione <ron.baione@xxxxxxxxx>]

Most governments affected by privacy advocates would tend not enact a law 
stating that Whois must all of a sudden show the general public private 
information, but there is always that possibility I auppose.  The fact that 
this policy hasn't been used once since 2005 could lead one to believe 
Whois is 100% compliant with all requests for customer information. Therefore 
maybe this policy needs to be strengthened or clarified to ensure customer 
privacy with specific language relating to requests from authorities and 
requests from countries that lack any discernable democratic structure.

Once the U.S. Government transfer occurs, customers may seek clarity on whether 
or not Whois changed its policy of compliance with requests for information 
from governments that don't have a stringent set of privacy laws. The 
internationalization and corporatization of the transition prpcess may cause 
some people to confuse the privacy issue, and they may not purchase domains 
thinking that foreign governments will now have better legal authority to 
request Whois information they previously were prevented from seeing, because 
of the U.S. government's previous role in ownership and oversight of the 
system.

Ron Baione-Doda