Thick Whois WG Comments - with some proposed edits

[Alex Gakuru]

Hi Kathy,

For a moment, imagining what it would be like if I were the labelled 'bad
guy' to be vanquished both online and real life?

Thus grounded on below advise from my colleague Henry, I pray for us to all
think from The Original Position and choose to preserve individual
registrant's privacy on WHOIS data.

thanks,

Alex

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Henry Maina <henry at article19.org>
Date: Fri, Oct 14, 2011 at 7:30 AM
Subject: RE: Thinking from the original position
To: Alex Gakuru <gakuru at gmail.com>


The Original Position is a central feature in John Rawls' social contract
account of justice as fairness set forth in A Theory of Justice

It is designed to fair and impartial point of view that is to be adopted in
our reasoning about fundamental principles of justice. It is the
positionof a free and equal persons who jointly agree upon and commit
themselves to
principles of social and political justice.

Its distinguishing feature is the veil of ignorance: to ensure impartiality
of judgement , the parties are denied knowledge of their personal
characteristics, social and historical circumstances.

See a book called A theory of Justice by John Rawls

HENRY O. MAINA
DIRECTOR
ARTICLE 19 KENYA/EASTERN AFRICA
P O BOX 2653,00100
NAIROBI
TEL:+254 (20) 3862230/2
FAX:+254 (20) 3862231
EMAIL: henry at article19.org


On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 6:05 AM, Kathy Kleiman <kathy at kathykleiman.com>wrote:

>  *Hi All,*
>
> *Great thanks to Amr for the first draft of comments to the **Thick Whois
> PDP Working Group. As you know, the question on the table is whether a
> “thick Whois model” – one in which all Whois data is held and made
> available by the Registry (e.g., Verisign) and not the Registrar – should
> be the model for all existing and all new gTLDs.*
>
> *For .COM, it's a huge issue. It is a “thin” registry, and 100 million+
> Whois records are stored by the registrar pursuant to local laws (including
> local privacy and free speech laws). Whether we can convert these 100
> million+ records to a single database – and whether we want to – are
> questions for this group.*
>
>  *Further, the issue of “Whois” data, service and protocol are all up in
> the air. If someday we reach agreement that this very personal data – that
> can expose individuals and organizations to threat for what they say and
> share online (including political, religious and ethnic minority views and
> dissent, including non-commercial activity) – should be private, then a
> single centralized Registry Whois database creates a single point of
> access. That means that should Registries be cozy with their local
> governments, all of this data may be relinquished without due process, or
> even subject to criminal laws that are non-standard in the world (e.g.,
> Syria, N.Korea, China).*
>
>  *The fact is that registrants know their registrars and it is to their
> registrars that the Whois information is provided. Most registrants will
> think they are protected under those rules. Despite the fact that New gTLDs
> (for this round, at least) require a centralized Whois – with the Registry
> – I remain deeply concerned about the consolidation of the massive .COM
> Whois (if it's even legal – see below) and the standard set for all future
> registries and TLDs – regardless of their political, social, or religious
> uses.*
>
> *
> If NPOC shares these concerns, I urge you to sign on – with thanks!
>
> Best,  Kathy Kleiman (veteran of far too many Whois task forces and
> review teams...)
> p.s. All of Amr's comments kept, and I added on and filled in some
> sections... *
>
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