Slashdot Mirror
NSI Changes the WHOIS Rules
[rs.internic.net]
The Data in Network Solutions' WHOIS database is provided by Network
Solutions for information purposes, and to assist persons in obtaining
information about or related to a domain name registration record.
Network Solutions does not guarantee its accuracy. By submitting a
WHOIS query, you agree that you will use this Data only for lawful
purposes and that, under no circumstances will you use this Data to:
(1) allow, enable, or otherwise support the transmission of mass
unsolicited, commercial advertising or solicitations via e-mail
(spam); or (2) enable high volume, automated, electronic processes
that apply to Network Solutions (or its systems). Network Solutions
reserves the right to modify these terms at any time. By submitting
this query, you agree to abide by this policy.
I have received my share of spam and am tired of it. When I try to track the scum (spammer) them down via whois, they have invalid contact information in their database.
Injured software engineer fights back against Mattel!
Seriously, shrink wrap is enforceable for provisions on a web site you haven't even read.
If you don't like the new UCITA laws that are being approved over the next two to three months in every state in the US, complain to your governor, attorney general and state senators/reps. Because this is what the new UCITA regulations mean.
And, if you don't live in the US, tough. We will enforce our laws on you anyway. Sure, we have no right to do so, but we do it anyway.
Will in Seattle
Example: Say I happen to be a resident of the United States of America. (God bless her; she needs it) But, I'm taking advantage of our good relations with our northern neighbor, Canada, and driving 'cross the border to go work for a lumber company. ("Oh, I'm a lumberjack and I'm okay.. sleep all night and I work all day")
So who gets to tax that income? Canada gets first dibs, because the work was done there, paid for there, etc. The US can (and would) tax me again because I'm a citizen, and more importantly, a resident.
Like I said, I'm not exactly sure how it works, but you can get into some pretty sticky situations that way. (citizen of US, living in Canada, working for a Japanese corporation, etc, etc)
No, actually, they have not. The message displayed for the last month was roughly the first half of the current message. This new one was implemented in the past 2 days or so.
Seriously, it's still enforceable even if you didn't know it was there.
Which is why MSFT and a number of other software companies are forcing the UCITA consumer laws through the individual states, hoping noone complains to their governor, attorney general, or state senators and representatives.
Have a nice day in Orwellian America.
Will in Seattle
Under UCITA, they can impose new rules on you without agreement or notification. You don't even have to know they exist. And it is legally enforceable, plus they can disable any and all software (e.g. your browser which has a WHOIS component) remotely and not be liable for negative side effects (e.g. it don't work no more).
That's the beauty of UCITA. Which is a series of regulatory laws going through every state legislature in the US, which we will enforce on the entire world (why? because we can). Of course, you might want to give your opinion of this to your governor, attorney general, and state senators and representatives.
Have a nice day.
Will in Seattle
Well, all they are saying is that you can't misuse the information they gave you. Its like as if I handed you a document that said written across the page "Top Secret, for your eyes only" Sure you probably already looked at some of the document before you noticed the top secret and its really too late at that point to say no I don't want to look at this document. You just simply keep your mouth shut and try and follow the legal order which the document gave you.
As far as I can remember for the past 3 months
InterNIC has been hell on crack. Domain registrations fail, don't go through at all, are
not entered into the whois database. Domain moves are a joke, I had to move 60 (yes, 60) domains from one nameserver to another. 60 update requests out of which 10 came through, about 20 returned without going through claiming incorrect information and the other 30 just vanished into
a big deep black hole. It cost me 2 months to get 60 domains moved. I also had to move about 10
There is no sig...
The cheques' in the mail
Seriously. We can and we will. After all, don't we (the US) own the Net? Of course we do.
...
It's not like we care what the rest of the world thinks (common non-US mistake #1 - assuming we care about what you think).
Have a nice UCITA day. Aren't you glad you were more worried about the Red Hat IPO than UCITA? Aren't you glad you never contacted your state's governor, attorney general, state senators and representatives?
Of course you are
Will in Seattle
They don't even have to tell you that the license agreement changed.
Just like in the @Home case.
And it is or will be legally enforceable, because noone contact(ed) their state's governor, attorney general, state senators or state reps.
And we will enforce it on the rest of the world. Why? Because we can.
Will in Seattle
Can't do it... try that with microsoft.com, and see how much you miss with only 7 lines of output.
-- LordHector
As for links, hm:
this one, or this one will probably suffice. Forgive me for not posting them originally, but I was tired and cranky enough to post the original which might be a valid excuse.
My general point is that, while I still greatly enjoy /. (and find it useful), I am beginning to have to take every story with bigger and bigger grains of salt because I don't know if they're current, their presence on /. is part of someone's private agenda, etc. I also am much less likely to submit a story due to a feeling of futility.
"Cause there's 40 different shades of black, so many fortresses and ways to attack, so why you complainin'?"
Of course, this is why I ways get my 3 year old to come over to my computer to hit the enter key whenever I need a whois information...
Maybe there just isn't much news, and Taco man had time on his hands.
As this message appears at the top of the whois query why don't they say something along the lines of: "by using the results of this query you agree to abide by the above rules..."
--
I would think once you've read it, the next attempt to use it means that you have accepted the license. BUt on the other hand, doesn't that enfur that it's THEIR data to protect in the first place?
By reading this reply to the article posted on Slashdot "NSI Changes the WHOIS Rules" you agree to take off all your clothes, run round the world naked 3 times shouting "I'm a penguin!" and eat bananas for the rest of your life. I reserve the right to modify these terms at any time. By reading this article you agree to abide by this policy.
--
Everything I know in life I learnt from
Too bad they don't have to agree to their own terms.
under no circumstances can inaction be taken as acceptance of terms. this cannot possibly hold up. IANAL
I wonder if this "agreement" would be somehow enforcable (AFAIK the agreements in EULAs are enforcable in the US by the court ruling in ProCD v. Zeidenberg).
The difference is that my whois client doesn't say anything to the effect of "Use of this software is governed by a license" WRT the results of a query like "Use of the results of a query are governed by a license". This is the reason the courts said EULAs are enforceable in the US. You know there's a license when you purchase the product. With a whois query, I don't know in advance that there's a license when I make that query (and it could change from one time to the next). And although IANAL, I'd guess that NSI's agreement is unenforceable simply.
I don't think this would be legally binding on the first whois query, because you haven't read the agreement yet. It probably would be binding on any further queries, because you have seen the agreement and continued to use their service.
link to it
Um, his whole complaint was that they DIDN"T use his 1st post. Course, his old post isn't new anymore (Changed agreement) and it's an old, feeble complaint, but you gotta admit that he couldn't have linked.
Actually, the original idea of putting the admin information in whois was so that if I made a technical error in, say, my routing that bogged down the network, people who saw the problem would know who to contact. That's perfectly sound. Of course that was in the good old days when everyone trusted everyone else. :-(
I run my own domain and mail server, amazing.com. There has always been only one valid email address for amazing.com, the rather obvious david@amazing.com . Recently, I've seen spams to other users at this domain, like brian@amazing.com . So I can only assume spammers are just inventing addresses in the hopes that they will work.
I find it interesting that people are selling these addresses to spammers - I would think the poor fools who buy these lists have a valid cause of action for fraud.
D
----
Really though, I liked that licence. What we don't need is a book that on the last page...
Okay. I think we all get the implausability of the not know ahead licence.
This is a foolish move on their part - US law is not going to allow any agreement that you cannot examine in any way ahead of time. You need to know a) that you are making a decision, and b) what the criteria is.
What is foolish about this is the same as any other legalism that is weak and unenforceable. It can weaken the law overall, and is a waste of legal jargon that could better serve us in a litterbox.
-jargon
/dev/psychic: No medium found
I hope you're kidding.
That only works because a government can pass a law making it treason to reveal information marked Top Secret to someone without clearance. A private company could possibly sue me for harming them by revealing trade secrets, but not for violating the bogus contract in: "By reading this sentence you agree to the following Non-Disclosure Agreement..."
"By buying this CD, you agree to the following license (which can also be found on the CD for future reference):" would be fine, but generally you have to buy and open it just to find out whether the license is even acceptable, which I find pretty sleazy.
Are these domain names you're talking about, or does NSI do Web service too (and if so, why would you use them?)
The WHOIS RFC doesn't mention expecting to receive any data (how would you know where it ends?) before sending the query. Nothing stops a multithreaded client from doing it, but there's no reason to expect it to.
In general, but then you knew that already. :P
The text of the agreement has changed (again). So, yes, they've posted before (twice, I think) that NSI has changed their agreement, but that's because this is the third time they've changed the agreement.
So you can't spam them if you don't like agreeing to something you didn't agree to?
...and you can't look up their e-mail address in whois if you plan to spam them anyhow?
That's no fun...
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
maybe release a patch to /usr/bin/whois so that we can stop before receiving the data itself, in case we don't agree?
These folks are fascists!!!!
By that, I mean legally bind someone to an agreement without first presenting the agreement for acceptance, modification, or whatever. Thats like taking a section of sidewalk, and at the end having a big sign that says "By walking down this sidewalk you agree to pay the guy next to the sign the sum of 10 american dollars". It just so happens that something important or useful is on the other end of said sidewalk.
Don't get me wrong, here, I am all for anything that gives power to attack spammers. I am just curious about the legality, the possible annoying precedent set here (think of the software licensing, the install is a program that presents a single "press enter" button then a screen that says "By pressing enter, you agreed to...").
ZOMG I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS ON MACINTOSH VERSUS WINDOWS, VI VERSUS EMACS, AND HOW YOU'RE NOT A DORK
I still don't like spammers, but to see an agreement like that scroll by just above the query you just sent is just a little crazy. Maybe they could have worded it differently to sound a little less like a mental institution.
Did this appear on /. before?
/. at least a month ago!
I know this is at least a month old, because
a number of people in my local LUG submitted
this story to
Why was that chump's submission deemed newsworthy
a month later than any of ours?
Old News for Nerds: Stuff That Mattered
"Cause there's 40 different shades of black, so many fortresses and ways to attack, so why you complainin'?"
By reading the above article, you agree to send $50 to CmdrTaco. Send the money to:
Rob Malda
116 East 18th St
Holland, MI 49423
Thank you, thank you very much.
I normally type the URL in directly http://www.networksolutions.com/cgi-bin/whois/whoi s?slashdot.org Wouldn't even see their license. Does just reading the results mean that I have agreed to their license?
...there reads a message. By having opened this box you legally agree to give me all your money.
Somehow it's not legally binding. Anyone with legal know-how(US or other law) care to explain to the class why?
-- James
-- Prepared at the direction of, or to be sent to Legal Counsel, in anticipation of litigation. Attorney Client Pri
Yeah, who? Maybe I underestimate this by far, but this doesnt seem to be worth a slashdot news entry at all.
Ach... quit your kvetching. The new agreement is far better than the prior agreement; at least NSI kowtow'd to the US Government and is no longer claiming the WHOIS database is its (and only its) property.
Now the real problem with NSI lately has been getting them to actually update the WHOIS database. Been six weeks and I still haven't gotten an update on my NIC handle (NT1213).
This is a serious problem.
Notably, the fax option works, but paper is soooo 1985 ;-) Seriously though, has anyone had any luck with online change requests?
----
Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft is a misnomer? Perhaps Macrosoft would be a better fit?
There are several requirements for a valid contract. One of these is consideration. What do I get in exchange for giving up all my money? If I get nothing, there's no consideration.
In your black box example and similar examples given here about writing on the sidewalk there is no consideration.
Another is called Meeting of the Minds -- everyone has to have all of the terms of the contract available to agree to them. This dosn't mean the terms have to be negotiable. (Contracts where you are offered terms take it or leave it i.e. insurance contracts are called contracts of adhesion and are very much enforcable. Though ambiguous clauses are interpreted against the drafter of the contract.)
This agreement, while perhaps not enforcable on the first lookup, is likely enforceable on subsequent lookups. The agreement itself is really not onerous. Here is some information (that may be valuable to you -- consideration), in exchange for that information you agree to two things:
(a) don't spam with it.
(b) don't put too big a burden on our servers.
That's quite an improvement over the old agreement.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
Yesterday in the mail I got a credit application from Discover for an "Information Techonolgy Platinum" card. It was addressed to the non-existant company I slapped into the contact information. Well, a company of one (me) kinda like blockstackers.
~Kevin
:)
Come on guys, how many of you have ever hit the "disagree" or "i do not accept button" in your life?
Sounds a lot like those software packages that put the EULA on the CD.. "By Opening this package, You agree to abide by the EULA contained in 'EULA.TXT' On the CD" ISTR that IBM did that for a bit.
Just incase you want to strip out the legalise internic has stuck in their whois, put this into your .bashrc or .bash_profile:
alias whois=`whois $* | tail -7`
Enjoy.
--
Well, this is a small improvement, at least. They're no longer claiming to own my name, address, phone number, and other personal information.
Now if only NSI would abide by their own terms and stop using the database to send me spam...
all you guys running off at the mouth about nsi, get a life. they put the agreement there to keep spammers at bay, and all you do is complain? "duh"
They take half your income because you work there. If you move to another country, your birth country won't be able to collect taxes from you.
That's not true in his case. The United States and Libya are the two countries in the world for which you still owe taxes regardless of what country you live and work in. This means that Amercians living and working overseas have often to pay taxes twice -- once to the US and once to their country of residence.
No, I don't think it's quite fair either.
---
DNA just wants to be free...
Windows is pre-installed on most off the shelf PCs these days, so the user never gets to see the MS license agreement (presented during the setup process) and thus never got a chance to click 'accept' or 'do not accept' buttons.The license is not on the outside of the box either. When did the user agree to abide by MS's rules here? Did he ever?
Apparently you've not seen the OEM installed version of windows. It gives you the chance to not agree if you want to.
...so what's the big deal? It's stating that you cannot use what you acquire from whois database for illegal purposes (including spamming, which is unfortunately still legal in too many places).
altho i don't particularly agree with :)
the new "license" i'd rather see the
whois prog ask y/n once, the first
time you run it instead of each time
cuz i work for a web hosting company
and have to use whois at least 50 times
each day...
-dk
Dream with the feathers of angels stuffed beneath your head.
The beautiful part is that they answered my mailback with a confirmatory message that quoted the contract in its entirety. That means that if it ever came to court (in my home state, as allowed by the contract they accepted), I could demonstrate that they received the contract. That puts them in a rather tough position: if they want their original e-mail contract enforced, they have to argue that e-mail contracts are legal. But I never agreed to their contract -- and they accepted mine!
IANAL, and I am certainly not stupid enough to actually force a court test. But if NSI ever decides to give me a hard time (not impossible, given the similarity of my UUCP-vintage domain name to that of a much larger Johnny-come-lately), I at least have some ammo. Heh heh.
At least this is more inline with what the 'net would like to see... is this just a pr stunt or a real change in the core of the company?
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
...the old agreement is null/void and I can use all the information collected under it to SPAM the planet?
Or to they just make this shit up as they go along?
Oh... that's what I though....
NSI has had that notice for the last month.
You Slashdot guys gotta read your e-mail more often. 2 late news stories in one day (see l0pht article).
Haven't we had this before?
The wording is pretty reasonable. The terms are unenforcable for your first /whois until the UCITA passes, and then only in the USofA in those states where it passes. Until then, your first /whois is license-free and all following /whois's are not .. since by then you know what the license terms are:)
actually thanks to UCITA, yes. "By installing this software you agree to send us a million dollars..." I bet there will be a lot of UCITA-related scams.
I doubt that this is a very heavily used function on the internet but please tell me why anyone would add so much additional verbiage to something that gets transmitted across the internet. Even if it doesn't hurt most peoples' response time, you think that NSI would realize that what ever box is supplying the whois responses now has twice as much data to pump out. I did a sample whois query and it took well over 10 seconds for the response to complete. Not that whois has ever been all that speedy to reply but that EULA-type statement sure came out fast! I guess NSI wanted to give me time to read the legalese before I hit ^C, eh? Don't they care about the extra load they're putting on their own systems? Is this negligible to them? Are they just being stubborn boneheads since Congress has been looking at them more closely? I suppose that the truth is that they don't care since they've already got your registration fee.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
sure it sounds reasonable. on the surface alot of unilateral agreements sound reasonable. but there's a point where this type of agreement becomes out of hand and we'll be agreeing to all kinds of weird things.
case in point: shrinkwrap software agreements/elua.remember like 10 or 12 years ago when these things used to be fairly legable? now they're totally out of control, type set in 3 point type, and have more verbage than war and peace! and it's not like you can understand them either, unless you have a legal degree... so everyone who needs photoshop, quark, office, code warrior, or any commercial software for that matter just blow right past them and quickly get to the installation screens.
so back to the topic at hand...
it wouldn't surprise me if within the next 18 months some type of recognition to the agreement will be enforced, similar to software installs, i.e. there'll be a "click here to agree" button on the web page or a type "y" in commandline to agree license compliance from nsi for whois.
what might seem draconian will be if nsi(maybe thru echelon?) keeps a database of who does whois...
three can keep a secret, if two are dead - benjamin franklin
Would be to put in the whois response:
"Repeated use of the whois query service is subject to terms and conditions"
And provide a link to a web page with those terms on it.
The problem, is that the 'whois' program connects, internic spews their agreement, then whois sends the query without waiting for the user to accept/cancel the agreement, I'm sorry to say it but I see no problem with the way internic has done this.
Just because you disagree doesn't make it offtopic or flamebait.
There's a fence post error which they should correct by saying: "By running this query in the future, you agree to these terms:..."
On the other hand, what the fuck does "or (2) enable high volume, automated, electronic processes that apply to Network Solutions (or its systems)." mean?
All the technology in the world won't hide your lack of vision, talent, or understanding.
Well, under the newly proposed UCITA laws for software, this is totally legal.
Oh, you mean you didn't know that the states are already taking away your rights? Then you should be contacting your state's governor, attorney general, state senators, and state representatives or else you're stuck with it.
More info on www.infoworld.com and www.pcweek.com
Will in Seattle
Whoa. I'm a dual citizen of the US and Canada and have filed dual income tax forms a number of times. The Canadian one taxed some of my US income, but the US one just said "Do you make more than $70K? If so, you owe us money. If not, get lost."
Will in Seattle
Sorry people, but given the litigious nature of business these days, I only see things like this getting much worse before they get any better.
Is it a reasonable to expect simpler agreements concerning the use of technology as technology gets more and more advanced? If not, I'm half-tempted "jump out of my BMW and run off into the hills somewhere" (stolen from old Phil Hartman SNL skit "Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer").
Seriously though, I'm feeling a bit overburdened these days by legal mumbo-jumbo. Are you conscious of ALL the regulations regarding usage of your telephone? Your credit card? Car insurance? Rent? Mortage? Employment? Or do you think you know the important points and just dismiss the rest as trivial details?
What happens if/when "ubiquitous computing" actually becomes commonplace--when we are wearing computers or when we are as dependant on them as our eyeglasses? How much legal BS will that involve?
Like wrapping up methods and data inside of an object, I've recently begun looking for ways to encapsulate complex things. Like my phone--I recently found a local carrier that advertises 7.5 cents/minute 24/7. No fooling around with attempting to call grandma only after a certain time of day. I hope other businesses catch onto this--packaging technology with simplicity.
Slashdot: Liberal News for Nerds. Liberal Stuff that Matters.
They forbid spamming. To spam, you need plenty of email addresses. If you plan to collect them thru whois, then this means that you have read it at least once before collecting the others. So theoretically, you can "legally" only spam ONE address. Not really spam then ...
They called it their 'paperback book' license, and it was real simple.
You could use the software just like a book. You could lend it to a friend who could use it. You could use it on more than one pc. But like a book, you can't use it at the same time as your friend, and you can't use it on two pcs at the same time.
That really was how they worded it, more or less.