ICANN Meeting Considers Privacy of Domain Reg Data
Oct 26, 2007
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is preparing for its 30th international public meeting in Los Angeles next week (disclosure: Tech Policy Summit is one of the event's sponsors). Among the topics that ICANN will be considering is whether or not it should revamp the WHOIS system that is tied to all Internet domain registrations.
If you've ever registered a domain, unless you paid for some type of proxy service to hide your details, chances are that your personal information such as name, address, email and phone number is available to anyone who searches WHOIS. Which has led to a debate over whether or not WHOIS should be changed to better protect individual privacy rights.
Professor and Berkman Center fellow Wendy Seltzer blogged yesterday about the current proposal to replace personal information in WHOIS with info on an Operational Point of Contact (OPOC). She writes:
While all [of registrants'] private information would still be collected, it need not be published. Instead, the OPOC would route messages to the right recipient, for operational, technical, or legal inquiries. Thus OPOC would simultaneously make WHOIS a better technical contact resource and improve domain registrants' privacy options. Even OPOC doesn't go so far as I would like -- I'd allow anonymous registrations, rather than insisting that data be collected if not displayed -- but it's better than the status quo."
ICANN is seeking public comments through 5pm PDT on October 30th. If you'd like to voice your opinion just email ICANN. You can also view existing comments online.
UPDATE (October 29th): The Associated Press just published an article that outlines the issue in greater detail.
Tags:
ICANN, privacy, Tech Policy Summit, WHOIS
