[At-Large] protecting domain speculators from oversight

[Karl Auerbach]

On 01/24/2013 07:46 AM, John R. Levine wrote:
> Hi, Karl.  Could you just answer the question without changing the topic?

You are not very polite.

> Do you think that the identity of corporate speculators that own domains, 
> including your typosquatting clients, should be public or secret?

You seem to use the words "speculator" and "vanity" as if that were
something to be condemned and thrown onto a bonfire.

Neither speculation nor vanity is unlawful.  Nor in many eyes are they
wrong or undesirable.

Internet policies ought not to be based on the views of Savonarola.

My personal belief that the entire whois system is ill-conceived.  I see
no purpose in open access to the public of what are really records of
private business relationships.

My personal belief is that if one wants to try to penetrate those
records that one should have to initiate civil legal process by
submitting a properly formed legal complaint that states a concrete
cause of action and then to use standard procedures to have the
registrar of record disclose the desired information.

And as you have seen I proposed a streamlined analog to that process.

Alternatively one may complain to proper law enforcement, by which I
mean proper law enforcement, not some Keystone-Kops band of
self-appointed vigilantes, who will themselves decide on whether to use
their powers of inquiry and who are bound to exercise those powers only
in accord with the proper procedures of their jurisdiction.

Notice that I did not distinguish between human or church or
corporation.  And that holds whether one is accusing or is the
registrant.  I, personally, might support different rules regarding
for-profit corporate registrants, but that difference would only be with
regard to the nature and quality of the registration information that
may be eventually exposed rather than the burden of proof required to
open the records.

It is my belief that every person or entity that wants to penetrate the
privacy of another ought to carry a burden to prove that he/it has
suffered a real and specific legally recognized harm and that there is
real reason to belief that that harm occurred through specific unlawful
actions that use the accused domain name.

A bald accusation that a domain name is speculative or vain falls far
short of that standard.

	--karl--