Regarding NSI's "ownership" of the DNS database,
perhaps a more fundamental question is whether
the contact information within Whois belongs to
the domain holder or the database operator.
This has serious implications for those who
now are amasssing marketing databases.
Consider: If my own contact data belong to me,
and my data is added to your database without
my express permission, for me, that's property
theft (which is why I favor "opt-in" over "opt-out"
to regulate "profiling" by email marketeers). By
registering a DN, I grant you permission to put
me in your database, but do you have the right
to share my data with others? Depends on our
agreement when I register. In the case of the
Whois database, I want that info to be public
for e-business websites, for accountability,
but I'm not sure there ought to be universal
exposure of all domain holders. A teenager
who buys a domain to talk about Barbie dolls
should not have her home address published.
We must defend against all kinds of predators.
We have an opportunity here to set a healthier
precedent for individual privacy. Will we do it?
-- ken
Ken Freed
Media Visions Webzine
http://www.media-visions.com
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