Re: [nc-whois] Gems: Draft for chapter IV.

[Thomas Roessler <roessler@does-not-exist.org>]

On 2002-06-08 14:05:04 +0200, Thomas Roessler wrote:

>Here's the draft gem collection for chapter IV (marketing & bulk  
>access).  It would be nice to have something along these lines in  
>every chapter, I suppose.

In the end of that document, there was a note in which I asked for a 
specific free-form response which I couldn't locate.  

I've found the text I had in mind - it wasn't from the survey, but 
 from Cameron Powell's Congress testimonial at  
<http://www.house.gov/judiciary/powell052202.htm>.

The text:

    >> Some use the RAAs allowance of an up to $10,000 charge for  
    their Whois[3] to insist on $10,000 even when they hold  
    relatively few domain names thus effectively preventing the very 
    public access ICANN (and the public) desire: who can afford to
    pay $1,000,000 for all 100 registrars data? <<

Later in that document, Powell also describes Snapnames' take on 
whois data access, and an attempt to get the various kinds of 
interests balanced:

    >> Mandate third-party (non-competitive) access to Whois data to  
    be used for the sole, legitimate purposes of escrow, hygiene,  
    and searchability, and eliminate the mandate for registrars to  
    give their Whois to their competitors.  Because a primary reason  
    the Whois data is hard to access is that registrars are trying  
    to defend it from competitors, registrars simply shouldnt be  
    required to give each other their priceless customer data, as  
    they are today.  We can think of no compelling justification for  
    the requirement, and its consequences block critical  
    innovations.  (Nor do customers or registrars want the Whois  
    used as a resource for spamming or telemarketing.) 

    Instead, registrars should be made to provide their Bulk Whois  
    data to neutral third parties non-competitors who will agree to  
    use the data solely for the purpose of escrowing, cleansing, or  
    building searchable fee-based databases out of it.  Because each  
    registrar charging $10,000 wouldnt get the project off the  
    ground, registrars should be required to provide their Whois  
    data to one or more third parties, for unified Whois use, on  
    reasonable terms.  These third parties would allow others to  
    search the resulting unified database only under certain  
    conditions (possibly with lesser or greater levels of access  
    depending on a users prior authorization) but at least at  
    per-record prices that would make mining the database for  
    marketing purposes prohibitively expensive.  Users could be  
    tracked and abuses recorded and penalized.  While a public Whois  
    look up on registrars websites should remain free, though  
    difficult to abuse via high-speed harvesting, no third party  
    provider can do the necessary aggregation, parsing, and  
    normalization of over 100 Whois formats, and then build a  
    powerful Boolean search tool for the data, without being able to  
    charge for its efforts.  Competition will define the appropriate  
    pricing. <<

Sounds like an idea we should at least record for further discussion.

-- 
Thomas Roessler                        <roessler@does-not-exist.org>