Support for Formulation 1 for the purpose of WHOIS

[Andy Oram <andyo@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

As an author and representative of the publishing industry who has been
following domain name issues since 1994, I am writing to urge support
of Formulation 1 for the Purpose of WHOIS.

There are plenty of laws and mechanisms to facilitate the take-down of
information that is displayed illegally (because of trademark
violations or other infractions) and for discovery and legal action
against perpetrators. The registry can simply move a domain name entry
and stop pointing queries to the associated systems.

Therefore, it is a dangerous and gross overextension of WHOIS to allow
it to be used for nontechnical disputes, which can put users at
risk. It is cynical to based this overextension on the excuse that
these risks were not recognized several decades ago when WHOIS began,
in a age when the numbers and types of Internet users were radically
different from today.

As with telephone numbers, people should be able to register domain
names without revealing who or where they are. This is part of the
right to communicate on the Internet.

Andrew Oram
Member, Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility
Editor, O'Reilly Media
(Affiliations listed for identification purposes only)