Unfortunately, the strength of the trademark lobby, who feels that using this technical tool as an enforcement tool makes privacy issues unlikely to be addressed. We have long been told that speech rights, and rights to privacy (constitutional rights) must take a back seat to intellectual property "rights." How having a list of all domain name holders, including home addresses and telephone numbers, is an "intellectual property right" is beyond me, but there you have it
Today a letter was submitted to the President of ICANN, Paul Twomey, at the ICANN Carthage meeting, "asking him to ensure that strong privacy safeguards, based on internationally accepted standards, are established for the WHOIS database." Latest reports indicated that the draft letter had been signed by about 50 nonprofit groups and represented 21 countries on six continents. "Signers of the letter included the American Library Association, the U.S. Association for... [CircleID]
Posted by ooblick at October 30, 2003 11:28 AM