Re: [gnso-acc-sgb] Report for tomorrow

["Palmer Hamilton" <PalmerHamilton@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dan,

Let me address why the consumer is at risk as well as the bank.

First, not all risk is off loaded to the bank.  There can be circumstances 
where the consumer can be held liable.

Second, in the case of identity theft, the consumer certainly experiences the 
serious and often devastating adverse consequences.  Anyone who has been the 
victim of ID theft can easily speak to this.  It is fine for us to talk about 
these issues in the abstract, but talk to a victim of ID theft, and he or she 
will likely not be too impressed some of the arguments we have been hearing.

So, yes, banks do have an interest in limiiting their exposure, but that 
interest coincides with the interest of the consumer.  And, yes, there are 
unfortunately circumstances where life savings can be wiped out.  This isn't 
rhetoric.  This is unfortunate reality.

I would submit that good public policy requires a careful balancing of 
interests.  When this is done, I think it is clear that a construct exists that 
will protect the consumer and protect the privacy concerns being expressed.  I 
fear that our subgroup does not seem to be engaged in this serious work.  
Instead, we seem to be holding fast to positions without exploring creative 
constructs that protect multiple interests.

To totally ignore the risk to the consumer, it seems to me, in order to uphold 
the theoretical, is neither wise nor justifiable.


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-gnso-acc-sgb@xxxxxxxxx <owner-gnso-acc-sgb@xxxxxxxxx>
To: gnso-acc-sgb@xxxxxxxxx <gnso-acc-sgb@xxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wed May 23 20:36:29 2007
Subject: Re: [gnso-acc-sgb] Report for tomorrow

At 5:34 PM -0700 5/23/07, Hugh Dierker wrote:

>The concept that private IP concerns are interested in the data to protect
>consumers is very interesting and I think requires some thought.


One should not overstate this case.  For one example, as I understand it
most credit card companies limit liability to customers if they report
false charges promptly.  (And then they will change the credit card number,
etc.)

This off-loads risk from customer to the financial institutions directly.
Thus in those cases the greatest damage is not to consumers but to the
financial institutions.

This is not to discount the interests of financial institutions, as they
definitely have legitimate interests.  But for example talking about
"consumers' life savings" rather than "financial institutions' profit
margins" has a rather different ring to it.

I'm all for supporting consumers' real interests in contexts where that
makes sense, but I am rather less patient with rhetoric that holds up
consumers as proxies for the interests of very wealthy legal persons.

(Also: did you really mean "IP" above or "ID"?  I don't see *any*
connection between "intellectual property" interests and consumer
interests, while the financial institution arguments are more common and on
the surface more plausible.)

-----

One other point, with regard to access types:

I personally don't see any reason that anyone, even LEAs, would ever need
"bulk access" to Whois data (which I interpret as the ability to download a
registrar's entire Whois database in a single integrated lump -- this would
be Type 3 access according to Milton's definition, if I understand
correctly).

Why would anyone ever need more than ongoing query access (as long as
queries can sometimes entail multiple domains, such as "all domains for a
particular registrant")?

I would suggest that there may be no compelling case that warrants true
bulk access to Whois data.

Dan

PS -- I believe Milton is going to revise the interim SGB report, so until
we receive that I will endeavor to refrain from a whole lot of further
comment.  I think it would be useful for us to proceed as much as possible
from the outcome of our call today.