Thick Whois Ignores Registrant Privacy

["Michele Neylon :: Blacknight" <michele@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The IRT's recommendation for a thick whois model seems to completely ignore 
registrants' rights to privacy.

A private individual has a right to privacy under EU law. 

The IRT seems to have a highly selective view of which matters are of 
importance to consumers. A right to privacy is a right that most private 
individuals would hold to be important:

"8. How will it affect consumers and competition?
It will reduce the numbers of player that ICANN needs to policy thereby 
ensuring that the
contractual obligations are met, and it will provide consumers and law 
enforcement with
reliable information"

Since a lot of consumers are private individuals I would posit that their 
rights are being ignored.

If a thick whois model is adopted then the quality of the whois data will 
continue to be as poor and inaccurate as it already is with existing gTLDs and 
the amount of useful and actionable information available to IP owners will 
continue to be negligible.

If, however, the IRT were to look at how registries such as .tel have 
implemented whois then maybe there may be a way to marry their desires with the 
rights of registrants.

The current proposal obviously does not do this.


--
Mr Michele Neylon
Blacknight Solutions
Hosting & Colocation, Brand Protection
http://www.blacknight.com/
http://blog.blacknight.com/
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