[arin-ppml] Policy Proposal: Customer Confidentiality

[Milton L Mueller]

William,
As I said in an earlier message, if you want to argue that "the public" has rights regarding access to information, then take it up in the legistlative sphere. ARIN sets policies for the ISPs using the address space it allocates. ARIN policies should be confined to those issues. ARIN does not 

If you want to pursue the analogy to real estate information, ISPs are intermediaries, "owners" of large blocks of address space, their customers are not. You are saying, in effect, that you should be able to query a database about a sohpping mall or office building and find out the name and personal information of every tenant. Doesn't happen, anywhere. 

If you wish to argue that ARIN policies require open access to end user customer data then the case is not so clear, because ISPs have a legitimate claim to shield their customer information, and customers also have a legitimate claim to shield it. It is not as if the information becomes completely inaccessible - people with a legitimate need for it can still get it 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: arin-ppml-bounces at arin.net [mailto:arin-ppml-bounces at arin.net] On
> Behalf Of William Herrin
> Sent: Tuesday, June 09, 2009 5:43 PM
> To: Aaron Wendel
> Cc: arin-ppml at arin.net
> Subject: Re: [arin-ppml] Policy Proposal: Customer Confidentiality
> 
> On Tue, Jun 9, 2009 at 3:33 PM, Aaron Wendel<aaron at wholesaleinternet.net>
> wrote:
> > My point in writing this policy was to protect information that is
> > proprietary to any business.  Tell a realtor you know that you're
> thinking
> > about going into real estate and you'd like his customer list. Then tell
> him
> > that you actually need his customer list to make sure he's legit.  If
> all he
> > does is laugh at you then you got off lucky.  I can think of no other
> > private business that is required to publish customer information to the
> > public.
> 
> Aaron,
> 
> Since you brought it up, let's talk real estate. Do you own a house?
> If you do and I know your address then I know who you are and I know
> how much you paid for the house because your identity and quite a bit
> of information about you is published in the public tax records.
> 
> Go ahead and try it with the address in my sig:
> http://icare.fairfaxcounty.gov/Search/GenericSearch.aspx?mode=ADDRESS
> 
> As with land, the public has a bona fide interest in knowing who is
> using IP addresses in more than a transient way.
> 
> Regards,
> Bill Herrin
> 
> 
> 
> --
> William D. Herrin ................ herrin at dirtside.com  bill at herrin.us
> 3005 Crane Dr. ...................... Web: <http://bill.herrin.us/>
> Falls Church, VA 22042-3004
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