[gnso-whois-wg] Re: Iintroduction to the WHOIS working group

[John Levine <johnl@xxxxxxxxx>]

>1. Current occupation, employer and position
>2. Type of work performed in 1 above

I'm self-employed as a writer and consultant. At the moment I'm
working on the 11th edition of The Internet for Dummies, a book I hope
some of you have read.  For two years I was an interim member of the
ALAC from North America.  I am a member of the boards of CAUCE US and
CAUCE CA, the leading grass-roots anti-spam organizations in the US
and Canada, resepectively.

>3. Financial ownership or management leadership of registries,
>registrars or other firms that are interested parties in Whois

I am a small reseller of Tucows' registrar services, but that's not a
significant fraction of my income.  I am also an unpaid member of the
.MOBI Policy Advisory Board.  CAUCE US and CAUCE CA are both
accredited ICANN at large structures.

>4. Nature of your interest in Whois

WHOIS data, even in its current imperfect form, is a vital resource
when tracking down sources of spam, phishing, and other antisocial
on-line activity.  I believe it is important to properly balance the
interests of the millions Internet users who do not register domains
but are affected by the actions of registrants against the much smaller
number of people and organizations who do register domains.

Incidentally, I probably won't be able to make the conf call on the 25th
because I'll be flying back from a .MOBI PAB meeting.

Regards,
John Levine, johnl@xxxxxxxx, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://www.johnlevine.com, ex-Mayor
"More Wiener schnitzel, please", said Tom, revealingly.