Whois: if you want privacy, pay for it
9 November 2007 | Published in DNS, ICANN, Privacy | 2 Comments
Netchoice, a lobbying group for the e-commerce industry had a strange reaction on the failure of the GNSO working group on whois to reach a consensus.
After all, they say, “Privacy concerns with Whois that were identified years ago have already been addressed by in the marketplace“. In other words, if you want privacy for your domain name registration, you need to pay extra for proxy services.
I understand that the industry wants to always sell more services. That means money for them. However, those proxy services were developed as a workaround to the current whois system, which does not protect privacy, and in wait for a more global solution.
But of course, the main question is that privacy is a fundamental human right under article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human rights. As far as I know, human rights are for everyone, not just for those who can pay for it. What is next ? Will we need to buy the right for freedom of expression or to organize in trade unions ?
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11 November 2007 at 23:38 (#)
Phone companies charge you to get your name out of the phone directory. Nothing new here.
12 November 2007 at 9:06 (#)
This not an universal rule. Actually, over here, it is free of charge.
But more fundamentally, telephone companies do allow you not to be listed. Hence, you have no reason to give out false identifiers. Whois is just the opposite. Since your records are public, you have to revert to third party systems to protect your privacy.