Availability of aggregate repository data

[Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>]

On a different subject.

Alex Horns, Robert Frank, and others have made the request that 
aggregate information maintained by the repository or others be made 
available to facilitate fuzzy matches of domain names.

It has been pointed out that there are privacy laws regarding 
database information.  These laws are especially strong when it comes 
to giving out aggregate lists with addresses, phone numbers, and the 
like.

Here are examples of the kind of abuse involved: first, advertisers
may get the list and send unwanted email to all domain name contacts. 
Second, I might be the contact for both "hotbabes.com" and
"council_of_churches.org", and I might find it embarassing for that 
fact to be widely known.

So there are aruments, legal and otherwise, against making aggregate 
contact data available.

However, aggregate contact data is *not needed* for the purpose 
specified by Alex Horns, Robert Frank, and others.  The only 
aggregate data needed is just the list of domain names, so that fuzzy 
matches can be made.  Only if a match is found is contact information 
needed.

I understand the need to have the names available in aggregate form,
but I am concerned about making the contact information available.  
And it may in fact be illegal in some jurisdictions.

Therefore I propose that an ftp-able list of active domain names be 
always available, and that "whois" data only be available through 
direct individual query.

To be more precise, I propose that the MoU direct the above.

-- 
Kent Crispin				"No reason to get excited",
kent@songbird.com,kc@llnl.gov		the thief he kindly spoke...
PGP fingerprint:   5A 16 DA 04 31 33 40 1E  87 DA 29 02 97 A3 46 2F