I share Fernando's concerns in general. However, I strongly object to the complete removal of postal contact information from Bulk Whois. This would significantly degrade the usefulness of this information for Internet Research purposes, one of the explicitly permitted uses of Bulk Whois. Withholding the street name and number could be reasonable for privacy protection; however, most postal contact information should remain in Bulk Whois for statistical correlation, including the city, state, province, county, and postal codes.
Furthermore, if you suspect abuse of Whois or Bulk Whois, this should be reported to APNIC; APNIC's website states, "Any use of this material to target advertising or similar activities is explicitly forbidden and will be prosecuted. APNIC requests to be notified of any such activities or suspicions thereof." If people violate APNIC policy, the first step is to report this to APNIC and ask APNIC to enforce its policies. Eliminating data from Whois or Bulk Whois is not the place to start. Now, if you are saying you have repeatedly reported such violations to APNIC, this policy change may be appropriate, but I don't see anything in the proposal that says any of the violations have been reported to APNIC. Thanks. On Mon, Jan 13, 2025 at 10:45 AM Fernando Frediani <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi > > Although I do understand the motivations to this proposal, I normally > don't like much this feel that may look obvious to many to remove as much > as contact data in order to not be bothered with marketing and sales > content due to the concern that make things more difficult for legitimate > need to get in touch for troubleshooting and legal demands. If you are > operating an Autonomous System and have responsibilities over it you must > be able to be easily contacted in order to deal with the legitimate demands > you commited when you became one, and for that there will be some burden > which if reasonable should be accepted. > > I understand the proposal suggests removing it from the bulk access, but > it has not been clear how it will work and how easy it will be for those > with legitimate need to get these contact details, if it will be with not > human interaction or if someone will need to fill a form and justify, etc ? > > Thanks > Fernando > On 13/01/2025 01:02, Bertrand Cherrier via SIG-policy wrote: > > Dear SIG members, > > A new proposal "prop-162-v001: WHOIS Privacy" has been sent to the Policy > SIG for review. > > It will be presented at the Open Policy Meeting (OPM) at APNIC 59 on > Wednesday, 26 February 2025. > > https://conference.apnic.net/59/programme/programme/index.html#/day/8/ > > We invite you to review and comment on the proposal on the mailing list > before the OPM. > > The comment period on the mailing list before the OPM is an important part > of the Policy Development Process (PDP). We encourage you to express your > views on the proposal: > > - Do you support or oppose this proposal? > - Does this proposal solve a problem you are experiencing? If so, > tell the community about your situation. > - Do you see any disadvantages in this proposal? > - Is there anything in the proposal that is not clear? > - What changes could be made to this proposal to make it more effective? > > Information about this proposal is appended below as well as available at: > > http://www.apnic.net/policy/proposals/prop-162 > > Regards, > Bertrand, Shaila, and Ching-Heng > APNIC Policy SIG Chairs > > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > prop-162-v001: WHOIS Privacy > > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Proposer: > Jonathan Brewer ([email protected]) > > > 1. Problem statement > ------------------------- > Through permitted bulk access to APNIC whois, several organisations > including Hurricane Electric and RecordedFuture republish physical > addresses, email addresses, and telephone numbers of APNIC members. > > These details are freely available on the web and available for mass > harvesting through the use of screen scraping technology. It is apparent > that some third parties have used this data in a manner contrary to the > APNIC whois data acceptable use agreement. > > In the past three years organisations including the Number Resource > Society (Casablanca, Morocco), Unique IP Solutions (Faisalabad, Pakistan), > Aileron IT (Wisconsin, USA), and EarnheardData (details suppressed) have > contacted my organisation via details published exclusively in APNIC whois. > None of these contacts have been to do with a legitimate networking issue. > > 2. Objective of policy change > ---------------------------------- > This policy will eliminate the unnecessary publication of APNIC member > organisation contact details. People with a legitimate need for these > contact details can use a service directly provided by APNIC to obtain them. > > 3. Situation in other regions > -------------------------------- > Unknown > > 4. Proposed policy solution > -------------------------------- > APNIC should remove all email addresses, telephone numbers, and physical > addresses from any bulk WHOIS data, and should cause any existing > re-publishers of APNIC WHOIS data to remove this information from the > Internet as a condition for continued access to data. > > 5. Advantages / Disadvantages > ------------------------------------ > Advantages: > This should reduce future marketing calls to the NOC phone and marketing > emails to the noc email address. > > Disadvantages: > None. The information will still be available via APNIC-controlled WHOIS > services which presumably are protected against illegitimate data > harvesting. > > 6. Impact on resource holders > ----------------------------------- > No impact on resource holders. > > 7. References > ---------------- > > _______________________________________________ > SIG-policy - https://mailman.apnic.net/[email protected]/ > To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] > > _______________________________________________ > SIG-policy - https://mailman.apnic.net/[email protected]/ > To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] -- =============================================== David Farmer Email:[email protected] Networking & Telecommunication Services Office of Information Technology University of Minnesota 2218 University Ave SE Phone: 612-626-0815 Minneapolis, MN 55414-3029 Cell: 612-812-9952 ===============================================
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