[NA-Discuss] Getting the WHOIS word out to users

[Wendy Seltzer]

John L wrote:
>> anti-privacy?
> 
> There is a long-standing meme in the pro-phish/porn/terror* camp that the 
> interests of the relative handful of individual domain registrants trump 
> the interests of everyone else.  That's one of the key reasons that WHOIS 
> reforms go nowhere.
> 
> Rereading Ross' message, it looks to me like he considers a domain 
> registration basically just a little private agreement between the 
> registrant and the registrar or registry, and it's really nobody else's 
> business, which is why he characterizes everyone else as free riders. 
> The problem is that it's more like a building permit, which some people 
> use to build a backyard gazebo and some use to build a backyard toxic 
> waste dump.

If we want to trade analogies, the IP address is the plot of land, and
the domain name is the "Barack for President" sign the landowner wants
to hang in the window.  Why again should we be regulating speech? :)

--Wendy


> 
> I'm sure my friends in law enforcement would be more amused than annoyed 
> to hear that they're free riders when they clean up the messes that 
> registrations enable, but it's not a position that is defensible in the 
> long run.
> 
> R's,
> John
> 
> * - we have lots more hot button insults to throw around, so let's not.
> 
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-- 
Wendy Seltzer -- wendy at seltzer.org
phone: +1.914.374.0613 // office: 617.373.7331
Visiting Professor, Northeastern University School of Law
Fellow, Berkman Center for Internet & Society
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/seltzer.html
http://www.chillingeffects.org/
http://www.torproject.org/