RE: [gnso-dow123] Info From Australian (auDA) review of Whois

[<Niklas_Lagergren@xxxxxxxx>]

Thanks for the info, Milton -

It is quite telling to see that auDA is not asserting that Australian
privacy law bars the disclosure of the full range of registrant contact
data. It simply states "Although disclosure of full registrant contact
details may not breach Australian privacy legislation, we do not believe
that such disclosure is in the interests of registrants or the general
public." 

In other words, it is justifying its stance on political rather than
legal grounds.   

This is worth keeping in mind since Australia has in the past been
mentioned by some members of the Task Force as one of the countries
where ICANN's contractual obligations regarding WHOIS would allegedly
violate local privacy law. During the last two years of TF work, we have
heard many claims from a few persons of cases of non-compliance with
privacy law at national level (notably in Australia and in some European
countries) but remarkably little evidence to actually support these
claims... 

As to the POLITICAL objective of, say, a given government or a given
ccTLD regarding WHOIS accessibility, it is all very interesting but
certainly not an issue for the GNSO to deal with. The GNSO would neither
have the mandate nor the time to do that I believe.

Kind regards -

Nik

-----Original Message-----
From: Milton Mueller [mailto:Mueller@xxxxxxx] 
Sent: mardi 25 octobre 2005 15:31
To: gnso-dow123@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [gnso-dow123] Info From Australian (auDA) review of Whois


Registrant contact details
Submissions from IP and copyright interests called for disclosure of
full registrant contact details. It was argued that Australian privacy
legislation does not prohibit disclosure provided the registrant has
given consent (express or implied). Some submissions acknowledged that
registrant contact details can be found via other means where the WHOIS
record includes an official identifier (eg. ACN or ABN), however this is
often not the case where the registrant has used a registered business
name or trade mark as eligibility criteria for the domain name.

auDA response:
Although disclosure of full registrant contact details may not breach
Australian privacy legislation, we do not believe that such disclosure
is in the interests of registrants or the general public. Given the
sensitivity surrounding the disclosure of email addresses, our view is
that most registrants would not want their physical address and phone
number disclosed on WHOIS. We are concerned that registrants may provide
proxy or false contact details to avoid public disclosure, thereby
undermining the quality and integrity of .au registry data. We note that
ASIC
and ABR also do not disclose full contact details online.