[arin-announce] Policy Proposal 2003-9: WHOIS Acceptable Use

[Member Services]

ARIN welcomes feedback and discussion about the following policy 
proposal in the weeks leading to the ARIN Public Policy Meeting 
in Memphis, Tennessee, scheduled for April 7-8, 2003. All feedback 
received on the mailing list about this policy proposal will be 
included in the discussions that will take place at the upcoming 
Public Policy Meeting. 

This policy proposal discussion will take place on the ARIN Public 
Policy Mailing List (ppml at arin.net). Subscription information is 
available at http://www.arin.net/mailing_lists/index.html 

Richard Jimmerson 
Director of Operations 
American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) 

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Policy Proposal 2003-9: WHOIS Acceptable Use

This proposal changes current Bulk WHOIS Acceptable Use Policy to 
become general WHOIS Acceptable Use policy that would apply to all 
WHOIS queries.

In particular:

1. A new acceptable use policy called "WHOIS Acceptable Use Policy" 
is to be published on ARIN website as follows:

"The ARIN WHOIS Data is for Internet operations and technical 
research purposes pertaining to Internet Operations only. It may 
not be used for advertising, direct marketing, marketing research 
or similar purposes. Use of ARIN WHOIS data for these activities 
is explicitly forbidden. ARIN requests to be notified of any such 
activities or suspicions thereof.

ARIN reserves the right to restrict access to the WHOIS database
in its sole discretion to ensure operational stability. ARIN may 
restrict or terminate your access to the WHOIS database for failure 
to abide by these terms of use."

2. Access to WHOIS data with individual queries (such as by using 
WHOIS protocol) must in the output either include entire 'ARIN WHOIS 
Acceptable Use Policy' in the comments or provide a one-line 
statement that data is provided and can only be used according to 
'ARIN WHOIS Acceptable Use Policy' with a link to where the policy 
is published on ARIN website.

3. High frequency individual query access and access to either 
entire WHOIS database or large portion of it must be provided with 
authentication to persons and organizations authorized by ARIN. 
These organizations must sign 'Acceptable Use Policy for Bulk Copies 
of ARIN WHOIS Data' agreement which shall include 'WHOIS Acceptable 
Use Policy' and additional statement that

"Redistributing bulk ARIN WHOIS Data is explicitly forbidden. It is 
permissible to publish data on an individual query or small number 
of queries at a time basis as long as reasonable precautions are 
taken to prevent automated querying by database harvesters"

Organizations that need access to ARIN WHOIS data on regular basis 
maybe required to resubmit the agreement on monthly basis at which 
time authentication settings may need to be changed.