[At-Large] Issue Report on Thick Whois

[Patrick Vande Walle]

On 22/11/11 16:38, Evan Leibovitch wrote:
> I would remind that At-Large is charged with protecting the interests of
> Internet end users, not registrants. Registrants have an interest in being
> able to hide. End users have an interest in domain owner accountability and
> transparency.
>
> I favour thick WHOIS.

To me, the basic question is not if the WHOIS is thick or thin, but
rather who queries my domain name, when and for what purpose and how I
can be sure that the data is used by the right people for lawful
purposes in a proportionate manner.
 
In any case, criminals will continue to put invalid data in the WHOIS,
whether thick or thin. Cheating on identity is nothing new. This has
been the case for as long as mankind has existed.

As for the  Internet end users registering domain names, I do  not think
we have any figures of what percentage actually know what WHOIS is, let
alone know that their private phone number, home address is available
for everyone to see.  If registrars added a big  warning in red letters
on their web site saying so, rather than 10 pages long legalese, they
would lose a lot of potential sales in gTLDs. 

Patrick