[arin-ppml] Policy Proposal: Customer Confidentiality

[michael.dillon at bt.com]

> I generally support an effort to increased Customer 
> Confidentially, but it needs to focus on the Customer's 
> interest not solely on the ISP's interest.  So I am worried 
> about how this proposal is written and that it seems to focus 
> on the ISP's interest not the Customer's interest. 

This policy proposal benefits both Customer and ISP. A customer
can elect to keep their contact info out of whois with the
understanding that the ISP will now relay messages to them,
and probably filter out junk like SPAM. On the other hand,
the ISP now has the option to offer a fully-managed Internet
access service and shield the customer from all communications
related to network abuse or malfunction.

As it stands, this proposal doesn't favor one or the other.

> It maybe as simple as requiring an ISP to provide the actual 
> customer information in Whois if direct by the customer to do 
> so.  That might be all it takes to put the customer's 
> interest ahead of the ISP's interest.

That would be reasonable. If an end user customer is ready,
willing and able to act on communications received, then they
should be able to have their info published. By getting the
wording right, we avoid creating a corner case. Since ARIN
has a direct bilateral relationship with the ISP, we can require 
them to provide contacts that are ready, willing and able to
act, but we should not force that on 3rd parties, the ISP
customers. But it is right to force the ISPs to allow the 
customer to elect to publish this info, if the customer chooses.

> I'm fine with an ISP choosing the default action, but the 
> customer should have a choice about their information, not 
> solely the ISP.

I agree. Going forward we need to be careful to not restrict
the choice of Internet users or ISPs except where that restriction
of choice is absolutely essential.

--Michael Dillon