At 1:32 PM +0200 6/13/02, Kai Schaetzl wrote: > > But just as I can walk into the local town clerk's office and get the >> name, address, phone-number, of the person who pays the land next >> door me, the "right to be anonymous" in this case is NOT the same as >> the generic "right to privacy". >> > >Sorry, Derek, you can pile up as many arguments as you like, but you >cannot neglect the fact that there is NO need for you to know a domain >owners email address. Full stop. You can contact them by postal mail or >phone, if you need to.
When the person you need to contact is in, say, the US, and you're in, say, a small third-world country, the per-minute charges on the international call (if you can GET an international call through... ever tried in some out of the way places), it can be quite difficult. For an issue happening in real-time, postal mail is not a solution, and (when phone is not an option, for various reasons), e-mail is the best solution for that problem. There are a great many different situations in the world that require varying levels of contactability, and the WHOIS system, as designed, accounts for all of those. It's a complex system, and changing it will only make it worse, and will not really address the spam issues (which seem to get everyone's tail in an uproar) at all. D -- +---------------------+-----------------------------------------+ | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | "Thou art the ruins of the noblest man | | Derek J. Balling | That ever lived in the tide of times. | | | Woe to the hand that shed this costly | | | blood" - Julius Caesar Act 3, Scene 1 | +---------------------+-----------------------------------------+
