I suppose I always thought about it like a telephone listing; if you wanted it private you could pay to do so. In that respect, just having the option is unusual when compared to other public registrations. I mean, what if I invented a sex machine and thought I might be embarrassed or invented a weapon and did not want to be publicly tied to the deaths that may result? As far as I know, there’s no $8 checkbox I can click to keep those patent registrations private.

On the other hand, there are some pretty good reasons to have domain name contact information available to the public. Thousands of domain name registrants lose their domain name each year, simply because their email address is broken or unaccessible. So when registrars replace the contact information of an expiring domain name registrant with their own (as is the current wide-spread practice), they prevent anyone from contacting the registrant to express concern or interest in the domain name. This is currently costing registrants millions of dollars per year, as the proceeds for selling those domain names is now claimed by the registrar.

It’s an interesting proposition, but I’d have to say I understand the reluctance in making WHOIS essentially an industry-only tool. There’s just something about the idea of an anonymous worldwide registration that seems inappropriate, but maybe that’s just me.

Following from the ICANN meeting today in which they took up the issue of the whois privacy debate, they outcome is unsurprisingly, motion 2.  Motion 2 is basically the do-nothing option.  It says that there is no consensus and more study is …

http://free-is.com/

I don’t know what their tolerance level is, though. :D

Vinton Cerf has used ICANN as a stepping stone from Bernie Ebber’s Worldcom to Eric Schmidt’s
Google. Eric Schmidt developed the orginal Berkley UNIX Sockets, and used those as stepping
stones to Sun (where he did not really work on Java) and Novell.

ICANN is now a small $50,000,000 line-item on Verisign’s budget. ICANN could close up and
nothing would happen to the Internet. Verisign will of course keep ICANN to run fools in
circles, as they protect the .COM cash-cow. Those days are numbered. Microsoft has installed
all of the replacement technology in Windows Vista, well in advance of THE Clinton’s
and Magaziner’s return to the Whitehouse. Bill Gates departs from Microsoft when THE
Clintons return, he is smart, very smart.

Vinton Cerf may try to get Google to absorb Verisign and ICANN to protect their search
engine name space. That is part of their (job) security, (cash-flow) stability, etc.

At this point in time, why would any “rational” American waste any time on ICANN ?