At 11/27/02 3:57 PM, Ross Wm. Rader wrote: >I'd be interested in hearing more about whether or not you all have any >ideas as to how much your customers are willing to pay for enhanced privacy >(or if indeed they are at all...)
Okay: The idea of charging people an extra fee for privacy is repugnant. The existence of a WHOIS service that reveals personal contact details for each domain holder is purely due to historical accident. Every domain holder I have talked to about it is appalled by its existence. >From our customer's standpoint, our industry is subjecting its customers to a tremendous invasion of privacy. Charging customers extra to prevent that from happening would be like kicking them in the head until they pay us to stop. Businesses that screw people as a standard practice and charge an extra fee for decent service don't survive in the long term. I know many people on this list have no complaint about WHOIS, but try asking the end-users: the vast majority of them believe privacy is a fundamental part of acceptable service, not an add-on. I certainly expect OpenSRS to be looking for ways to enhance the fundamental service, including privacy, and I'm glad to hear you're investigating ways to do that. But like end-users, I don't expect (and won't accept) an effort to turn something so basic into a profit center. What's next: asking how much more people are willing to pay for prompt transfers? That kind of thing is why I won't do business with VeriSign. ------------------------------------ Robert L Mathews, Tiger Technologies
