At 6/12/02 9:17 PM, wxWeb.com wrote: >> 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. > >An incorrect assumption. > >Property ownership records are public, and ANYONE can search them.
Yes, I know. That's why I included the last clause of my paragraph above: government records about private individuals are confidential *unless there is a compelling societal interest served by making the information public*. Property ownership records are one of those "compelling societal interest" exceptions. Same with marriage records, arrest information, and a few others. There are strong legal reasons for these (for example, public marriage and property records are used by lawyers to argue issues of inheritance). Most of the less life-altering government records (driver's license, dog license, boat registration, holders of annual passes to US National Parks, etc.) are not made public despite the fact that you could argue there might be some societal benefit to doing so. The benefits of making such information public have not been judged to exceed the individual's right to privacy. My point is that domain registration seems more like one of the less life-altering activities than like a public-record generating activity such as buying a house, getting married, or going to jail. Certainly you'd have a tough time convincing Jenny Smith of Topeka who wants to register "welovebeaniebabies.com" otherwise. Why I continue to bother to argue this I don't really know; as I think you yourself, William, pointed out last time, it's not like I'm going to immediately put a stop to WHOIS information being made public, no matter who I convince here. It does bother me a great deal to see resellers continuing to dismiss it as if it doesn't matter to our customers, though, or implying that customers are being unreasonable to expect that the information remain confidential. I constantly have to calm down customers who simply can't believe their contact information has been made public; these people feel seriously violated. Many of you with large customer bases must go through the same thing. ------------------------------------ Robert L Mathews, Tiger Technologies
