[ncc-services-wg] Finding previous user of IP addresses

In message <9032D272-96D5-47E5-869F-7044B3B88EFC at ucd.ie>, 
"Niall O'Reilly" <niall.oreilly at ucd.ie> wrote:

>I expect that there will be a "grey area" between what should be open
>and what needs to be protected, and look to the NCC to make clear
>where the bounds of this grey area will lie.

There is no "grey area".  Why would you even suggest that there is one?

Data relating to natural persons falls under GDPR.  Corporate data does
not.

If anyone anywhere within RIPE, RIPE NCC, or Europe generally is having
any difficulty distinguishing between natural persons and corporations
then I can and will gladly supply numerous photographs in order to assist
in illustrating the important and easily recognizable differences for the
benefit of any who may still be having difficulties in distinguishing
between the two... like numerous domain name registrars that I could
quite easily name.

>It is important that "privacy issues" is not allowed to become (as in
>some contexts, "health and safety" already has) a groundless, facile,
>but yet unassailable reason for refusal.

While I agree with the above sentiment, I'm sorry to have to point out
that this ship has already sailed, quite some time ago already, largely
if not entirely due to cowardice, lethargy, and an abundance of useless
inaction on the part of ICANN.  Try getting -any- meaningful WHOIS data
for any corporate-registered domain name out of, just to name two examples,
either Enom or Alibaba.  And good luck with that.  More to the point, try
to get any answers out of ICANN for why they stand by idly while numerous
domain name registrars openly flaunt their ability to utterly ignore their
contractual commitments to ICANN (e.g their contractual commitments to run
WHOIS servers with actual data in them) even in cases that clearly do not
implicate GDPR protections for natural persons.  And good luck with that
also.

>For avoidance of doubt,
>I am not at all suggesting that the NCC has begun to use either of
>these phrases in such a way.

And neither am I.  But having been stonewalled by multiple -other- bodies
of so-called "Internet governance", I can say that I personally do not
think that it is entirely inappropriate to make the point that no such
body should be using GDPR or any other lame excuse for failing to do its
job, or to provide open records, as was the long tradition on the Internet
even well before any of these bodies even exited.


Regards,
rfg