[At-Large] Impressions from the Whois-Review

[Evan Leibovitch]

On 31 January 2011 11:37, John R. Levine <johnl at iecc.com> wrote:


> I really wish that the ALAC would get over the 1990s idea that somehow it
> represents the tiny handful of individual vanity domain registrants (such
> as me) in preference to the vast majority of users who have never
> registered a domain and never will.
>


Pardon?

I hope I'm not lumped in with that description.

Registrants are -- at least in the ICANN flowchart -- supposely represented
by the non-contracted house of GNSO. Whether that's an appropriate or
effective vehicle for their interests is a different debate,

But At-Large is (always in theory and increasingly in practise) about the
individual end user -- I still bristle at the term "consumer" because even
that implies financial transaction. It has taken some time finding its feet
but I don't think that the ALAC of today speaks to the vanity interests you
speak of. Indeed, privacy advocates have (at least in my experience) found
At-Large to be not particularly friendly to the notion that domain owners
have the unrestricted right to hide.

- Evan