[ppml] Nasty business with 2003-3

[Michael.Dillon at radianz.com]

>I will 
>note that the public policy meeting minutes mention nothing about this 
>issue[1], and I note that you were at the meeting and you generally are 
not 
>shy about airing your concerns at these meetings.

I didn't think about this until the last call on the mailing
list. And now, I'm not sure whether there will be another
last call so I wanted to air the matter before the BoT
looks at it again.

>(which got us back on the topic of 
>re-crafting all policy that exists to make it more consistent, which is a 

>laudable goal but was beyond the context of the agenda item).

Let's hope that the agenda manages to get back to that one 
someday.

>2) The definition of 'street address' (IMO) is sufficiently ambiguous to 
>allow an ISP to not provide any localizing information.

I believe that many telco and cableco ISPs view ARIN's policies
as a form of regulation and would be as hesitant to violate the
letter of an ARIN policy as they are hestiant to violate the law.

>3) The change proposed (changing 'street address' to something like 
'street 
>address, city, state, zip and country') would require the policy to go 
>through another cycle, and there was an immediate need for a change in 
the 
>existing policy.

I know. The process stinks. The BoT should have fixed this issue
by directing ARIN staff to remove all location identifying fields
from the database until such time as a policy could specifically
address what information was to be made public and what information
was to be made private, particularly with regard to the Gramm-Leach-Bliley
Safeguards Rule. A letter could have gone to all registered rwhois
server operators suggesting that they do likewise until the matter
is resolved.

In fact, it is not too late for the BoT to convene an extraordinary
meeting and do just that. We've got to realize when we are dealing
with issues that affect the larger society and step aside from the
political infighting between our industry interest groups.

--Michael Dillon