Exposing Personal Information in the Whois Database

rocketjam writes "In a letter to U.S. Representatives Lamar S. Smith and Howard L. Berman, the Center for Democracy and Technology has raised the issue of privacy problems with the Whois Database. Acknowledging the database is uncontroversial for commercial registrations, the letter points that private individuals who register a domain name expose their names, home addresses, home phone numbers, and home e-mail addresses to the world. The letter warns, 'The current Whois regime is on a collision course with public sensitivities and international law. In an era of concern about identity theft and online security, it is unwise to require millions of individual registrants to place their home phone numbers, home addresses, and personal email accounts into a publicly available database that places no restrictions on the use of that data.' Additionally, the letter points out the current policy violates the privacy laws of some nations."

Comments

UK WhoIS

[ledow]

The UK WHOIS database (run by Nominet UK) has recently considered this too. Now, private individuals who opt-out can have their personal details removed (obviously Nominet still has access to them). I'm not sure that companies are allowed to do this, it's private individuals only.

Britain and the EU have always had stronger data protection laws than the rest of the world. This is part of the reason the EU are looking at Microsoft's .NET services as they don't follow EU data laws. To be honest, it's about time the US caught up.

In the mean time, in Germany...

[yourruinreverse]

... it is required by law that anyone who publishes even a single web page on the Web (in Germany) enclose an "Impressum", an imprint that notifies visitors whom to contact or hold accountable for the content. I wish this would also be implemented for Whois as a security measure or a basis for trust.

Anyone who still wants to publish anonymously could still do it abroad, of course, as there will always be registrars who and nations that don't care about trust.

I mention trust here, because I can trust a company's products (i.e. a shop selling goods) if I know where I can go, or what number I can call: currently too many (some) web shops (at least locally) do not even mention a telephone number I can call to have an order confirmed or more product information detailed. The same holds for web sites that provide information: if the e-mail address is left out, how can I get any confirmation, more detailed information, conversation or feedback going?

As it should be

[HighOrbit]

I'm sorry, but you have *NO* right to an anonymous domain, nor should you because the opportunity for fraud on the internet is too high. Having everything out front at least keeps a modicum of openness and honesty (although admittadly not a lot).Besides, if I remember properly, you can update the e-mail address to be admin@your-new-domain if you don't want spam going to your personal email.

If you want relative anonymity, get a hotmail or yahoo account.