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 Solution

[rf0]

The UK has come up with a nice half-way house where people can opt-out of having their details published but instead their ISP/Registrar puts up their details. Should any of the details (for police etc) then the ISP can pass them on as needed. However normal people can't find out the details

Rus