Comment on the Report on the Purpose of Whois and of the Whois Contacts

[Olivier.Maeterlinck@xxxxxxxxxxx]

IFPI Belgium represents the Belgian musical record industry and its 
members represent 95% of the Belgian Musicmarket.

Not only IFPI Belgium and members rely on Whois contact to resolve  
technical, legal or other issues regarding registration or use of a domain 
name, but consumers, parents, security specialists, law enforcement, and 
many other groups also depend on ready access to Whois data.  Public 
access to this information promotes accountability and transparency 
online.

IFPI Belgium, for example, uses the whois information to send 
abusenotifications to the contact of the website containing infringing 
material. This is not possible if whois data is only accessible under 
formulation 1.

A narrow definition (Formulation 1) would hamstring our businessâs efforts 
to combat frauds and scams, protect our members' intellectual property, 
carry out electronic commerce, and promote a more transparent and 
accountable Internet.
 
Therefor IFPI Belgium and members ask Icann to reject the too restrictive 
and norrow formulation 1.


Olivier Maeterlinck
Bedrijfsjurist - Juriste d' Entreprise - Company lawyer
IFPI Belgium VZW-ASBL (406.594.306)
place de l'Almaplein, 3 b 2
1200 Brussel-Bruxelles
tel.: 0032-2-779.41.74
fax: 0032-2-779.16.69
www.ifpi.be