RE: [gnso-dow123] Question for Internet Service Provider constituency members regarding customer information

["Marilyn Cade" <marilynscade@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Bruce, as someone who until recently worked for a Tier 1/with a retail ISP,
I appreciate the interest. ISPs are a very different "SPECIES", since in
many countries, the ISP is "authorized", if not licensed....in other
countries, not. Some serve small numbers of subscribers; others large
numbers; some have infrastructure; some don't; some charge a monthly fee;
others don't.  And so on.....

Some countries have specific laws about ISP services, including a safe
harbor for notice and take down of copyright material, child pornography,
etc. Some countries have self governance approaches, with a reliance on
basic business law...  ISPs are usually required to pay taxes where they
have "nexus"... there are many differences as well as some similarities to
registrars..... 

Of course, some ISPs are also part of the registrar world...... in some
small part of their overall business... where this occurs, it is usually a
small business line... among many... 

I think we should perhaps, IF there is interest in having an informed and
balanced discussion about the ISP "world", ask the appropriate constituency
itself to help to organize and contribute to such a discussion. However,
this should be PART of the work of the TF, not undertaken separately, it
would seem to me. Given that we are "learning" and inviting experts in, the
ISP members on the TF can help to do outreach and develop a panel of ISPs
that may have different footprints/and come from different countries. 

There are of course, some similarities between ISPs and registrars, and some
ISPs act as registrars. ISPs vary -- some have infrastructure; others are
"ESPs", such as Yahoo, MSN, etc. And some are largely business oriented,
such as AGNS, while others are retail oriented -- e.g. largely consumer
oriented. 

Thus, this group can be added into the group of invited "presentors"....
Otherwise, we get a random and not thorough response by just polling the TF
itself. 

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-gnso-dow123@xxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-gnso-dow123@xxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Bruce Tonkin
Sent: Friday, March 04, 2005 2:59 AM
To: gnso-dow123@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [gnso-dow123] Question for Internet Service Provider constituency
members regarding customer information

Hello All,

I note that the current domain name WHOIS makes public information about
the registrant of a domain name.

With respect to misuse of Internet resources, often domain names are not
involved.

A party trying to track down information about a person infringing on
intellectual property rights or breaking a local law, may only have a
source IP address.

If a party looks up information on the source IP address, they will
typically find that an Internet Service Provider (ISP) is responsible
for that IP address.  In much the same way that a registrar is
responsible for managing a particular domain name record.

My question is do Internet Service Providers ever publish information
about their customers and what IP addresses they use?   (this may be
influenced by the local laws where an ISP is based)

If a party contacts an Internet Service Provider about mis-use of the
Internet, what action does the Internet Service Provider take?

Is it to remove access to the particular IP address, or otherwise
suspend the customer's account?

Or

Does the internet service provider provide information about the
customer associated with a source IP address to third parties such as
members of the intellectual property community?

What mechanisms have the internet service provider industry developed to
quickly respond to misuse of the Internet by their customers?

I am interested in seeing if there are any learnings/practices from the
internet service provider industry (which in many respects pre-dates the
domain name industry) that can be applied to the domain name industry.

Regards,
Bruce Tonkin