> Assuming they aren't illegally mining the WHOIS (which is doubtful for > operations of that size), the answer is most likely that these two > companies purchased the information from OpenSRS under the ICANN-mandated > bulk WHOIS sharing program. (I'd be interested to hear if OpenSRS would > confirm that, although I assume they aren't able to disclose customer > information for privacy reasons. But if OpenSRS has never dealt with > these companies, it seems possible to say so without overstepping privacy > bounds... hint hint...)
One point of clarification. It is *not* a violation of terms and conditions on the usage of public whois data to use *postal mail* for solicitations. The ICANN policy only prohibits e-mail, telephone, and fax bulk solicitations. (see section 3.3.5 of the Registrar Accreditation Agreement at http://www.icann.org/registrars/ra-agreement-17may01.htm) So they can legally mine the public whois and send postal mail solicitations. But they cannot send out deceptive mailings, i.e. those that violate postal regulations.
