Whois may be scrapped to break deadlock

Source: USA Today
By Anick Jesdanun, Associated Press

NEW YORK — Tech industry lawyer Mark Bohannon frequently taps a group of searchable databases called Whois to figure out who may be behind a website that distributes pirated software or tricks visitors into revealing passwords.

Like a "411" for the Internet, Whois contains information such as names and phone numbers on the owners of millions of ".com" and other Internet addresses. Bohannon and his staff at the Software and Information Industry Association rely on the free databases daily in their efforts to combat theft and fraud.

Law-enforcement officials, trademark lawyers and journalists, as well as spammers, also use it regularly.

"The Whois database is in fact the best, most well-recognized tool that we have to be able to track down who in fact you are doing business with," said Bohannon, the trade group's general counsel, adding that alternatives such as issuing subpoenas to service providers take more time and cost money.

read more: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2007-10-29-whois-database_N.htm

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I would have put this in LBN, except it may be more than 24 hours old.

at the expense of consumers - and citizens.

phony "press" outlet was.

Probably lots of other stories too, that aren't coming immediately to mind.

there are plenty of ways to put up a web site or blog page without having to put your real name on it for all to see. When you buy a domain name, there's a certain amount of accountability involved that is no longer the purview of the blog site or other service provider. It's your domain, you are responsible for the content, and you should not have a problem putting your name on it. /imho

The Whois database is in fact the best, most well-recognized tool that we have to be able to track down who in fact you are doing business with," said Bohannon

Exactly. Getting rid of Whois is a bad idea.

Thanks for the post.

Not to mention that is is often a "last resort" for finding the source of a particular website or group of sites.

And who are these "privacy advocates", anyways?

If anything, the WHOIS service should be MORE tightly regulated and expanded, not eliminated. Not even temporarily.

Just think of the good the service has done catching kiddie porn sites.

Do we really want to throw away the baby for such a trivial amount of bathwater?

When the left supports information-gathering, they want to shut it down! :banghead:

They sold Americans the same scam with power utilities and water utilities. Now I see they've attempted to export the same model to here.

More Studies. Vote was 17 against and 7 for.
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2007/10/net_governance_body_punts_on_w.html?nav=rss_blog

http://wendy.seltzer.org/blog/archives/2007/10/31/icann-deja-vu-day.html