[Privsec] purpose of whois

[Ralf Bendrath]

Hi Avri,

Caroline Wilson from the University of Southampton, who also is on this 
list, has done extensive work on whois and privacy and could maybe be able 
to answer more substantially.

In general, I agree with Karen and defintely prefer the first version:

>> 1. "The purpose of the gTLD Whois service is to provide information 
>> sufficient to contact a responsible party for a particular gTLD 
>> domain name who can resolve, or reliably pass on data to a party who
>>  can resolve, issues related to the configuration of the records 
>> associated with the domain name within a DNS nameserver."
This was the original purpose of whois, and therefore the use of any
whois data has to be confined to this. New uses (e.g. finding copyright
infringers) would need the ok of all of the persons already in the whois
databases.

>> 2. "The purpose of the gTLD Whois service is to provide information 
>> sufficient to contact a responsible party or parties for a particular
>>  gTLD domain name who can resolve, or reliably pass on data to a 
>> party who can resolve, technical, legal or other issues related to 
>> the registration or use of a domain name."
This is way too broad, especially the formulation "resolve (...) other 
issues related to the (...) use of a domain name" - this could be 
*anything* and is totally unacceptable.

Best, Ralf