At 6/12/02 12:35 PM, Derek J. Balling wrote: >I'm still not convinced that the registrant - a tenant of a shared >namespace - has any NEED of privacy. There does not yet to seem to be >a demonstrated need for such, thus making this statement as a factual >statement and not just an opinion would be unwarranted.
I have to strongly disagree with this statement. Nobody has to demonstrate a "need" for privacy. Confidentiality of personal information is a fundamental right and a reasonable default assumption. It is the law of many countries (you'll note that the .uk WHOIS does not reveal contact information), and even in the United States, which has weaker privacy laws, courts have long held that government must keep the records of individuals private unless there is a compelling societal interest served by making the information public. The "government" part is relevant; the original requirement that CNO WHOIS information be made public came from the NSF/DOC contracts -- that is, at the direction of a US Government agency. Of course, that was in 1992 when there were a total of 3,950 domain names registered; it was simply assumed that the large educational institutions, backbone providers, and so forth that made up the entire Internet at the time would want to make their contact information public for network troubleshooting. I doubt NSF would make the same default assumption today. Anyone reading this list could come up with legitimate reasons why someone might not want their home address and phone number published when they purchase a domain name. The burden is not on an individual to demonstrate why their contact information should not be a matter of public record. Rather, the burden lies with those who want the information to be public to demonstrate why it should be. I'm sure people can make arguments that claim there *IS* a societal interest served by making this information public. That's fine, and those arguments should be taken into account. But people making the argument need to prove their case; individuals don't need to prove the opposite. ------------------------------------ Robert L Mathews, Tiger Technologies
