[anti-abuse-wg] 2010-08 New Policy Proposal (Abuse contact information)

On 9 Nov 2010, at 12:49, Marco Hogewoning wrote:

[...]

> My personal view is this won't solve the main issue. Making IRT mandatory does not improve data quality especially not in the long run. People might just put something in to make things work or they will simply forget to update the object once it's there.
> I realize there is another proposal floating around to fix this by introducing a regular check. But as these are seperate there is no guarantee both will make it to implementation. And again making it mandatory for people putting stuff in the database, by no means mean people pulling data from the database will start using it. At least not unless you tell them how.

I think you have highlighted something very important. No policy can ensure that network operators deal with abuse reports they don't have any interest in reading or resolving. Given that situation, removing the mandatory IRT reference makes that group more visible because they will have chosen not to create an IRT. This will help people reporting abuse as they'll know the operator wouldn't take the reports seriously anyway.

People interested in receiving abuse reports can already indicate that fact by creating an IRT object or adding an abuse-mailbox line to their maintainer. Making an IRT object mandatory will only enforce the form and not the intent. As such, I suspect it would add cost without value.

By all means create additional educational and training material but please don't remove an indicator for how seriously a network operator will take an abuse report.

Regards,

Leo Vegoda