[anti-abuse-wg] whois access

 >So you want to make money out of our data? And you're upset that EU 
law and RIPE's policies slows you down?
> Mr Michele Neylon Blacknight Solutions

You may not like the response (I would not like it if I were outside the 
US) but the data is bought and paid for by the US taxpayer.  IANA is 
done via contract to the US Department of Commerce NTIA.  I have filed a 
formal Freedom of Information Act under US law requesting access since 
it appears to me the US Government owns the data.  US Taxpayers are 
paying ICANN/IANA to standardize this data and ensure stuff like this 
does not happen.  ARIN (and all the RIR's) should be under the same 
requirements and should supply data to other countries as well.  It is 
an issue of supplying an Internet function to all users not an "our 
data" vs. "their data" issue.

But, yes, I want to continue to make money off the data.  Just like your 
business wants to continue make money off the fact that domain 
registration was changed from a one-company monopoly to a distributed 
competitive system so that companies like your can combine domain 
registration and web hosting.  Since most of the Internet was developed 
in the US by the US government (not to say there weren't significant 
contributions elsewhere) an argument could be made the rest of the world 
is profiting off USA data.  But I see nothing wrong with that.  The more 
people involved in commerce, competition, and making money off the 
Internet the better it will be and more and better services will be 
offered.  But none of your customers actually need to register a domain 
through you, they can all the US based Network Solutions.  I bet before 
competition is they blocked your company from registering domains I 
expect you would have had a fit.  As it is you are profiting from a 
US-developed system.

I have no problem when data laws are applied correctly.  The situation 
we have here is that you have data that is mandated to be public while, 
at the same time, there are claims it needs to be protected.  You can't 
do both, either it is public or protected.  On top of that we have 
methods that claim to protect the data that do no such thing and it is 
costing me money and inconveniencing Internet users and serves no real 
purpose.

Thank you