Politech: FC: FTC wants the real identity of domain holders to be public

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

[A few thoughts: 1) Anonymous pamphleteering has a long and distinguished 
history in meatspace -- why should the Net be different? 2) I'm not sure 
why a registrar should care about valid phone number/address contact info 
as long as a domain is paid for; there even are services that will register 
a domain taking e-gold as a payment 3) The FTC is also supposedly concerned 
about privacy, which these requirements would not adequately protect 4) If 
a person setting up a controversial site has to provide his real contact 
info and phone number to the world, he could be subject to harrassment and 
other unintended results. 5) I'm not sure why the FTC should be submitting 
comments here apparently on behalf of all law enforcement -- if the FBI has 
a problem, let them complain about it directly. --Declan]


http://www.ftc.gov/os/1999/9910/icann.htm

INTERNET CORPORATION FOR ASSIGNED NAMES AND NUMBERS
Public Comment Forum

Comment of the Staff of the Bureau of Consumer Protection of the
Federal Trade Commission*
October 29, 1999

Inquires regarding this comment may be directed to
Bureau of Consumer Protection staff attorney
Michael Donohue, (202) 326-3563, mdonohue () ftc gov


We support those measures contained in the Tentative Agreements which are 
aimed at improving the accuracy of registration contact information, and 
offer two suggestions for closing possible loopholes in those measures. The 
first recommends domain name suspension in situations where a registrar is 
unable to obtain accurate contact information after a reasonable 
investigation. The second encourages ICANN to avoid delay in adopting a 
policy requiring registrars to implement reasonable verification procedures.
...

For law enforcers working to prevent Internet fraud, the problem of false 
domain name registration information has become an impediment to 
effectively identifying law violators. When accurate, the registration 
information publicly available on the Whois database provides an important 
tool for tracking down the operators of Web sites violating the law. 
Commission investigations are increasingly being hampered, however, by 
registration information that is not only false, but sometimes clearly 
false on its face.
...

Commission staff also supports the requirement in paragraph II(F)(1) of the 
Accreditation Agreement that a registrar make publicly available the 
essential contact information in real-time.
...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
POLITECH -- the moderated mailing list of politics and technology
To subscribe, visit http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html
This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------