[arin-ppml] Policy Proposal: Customer Confidentiality

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

Aaron Wendel wrote:
> I think people are missing the point.
> 
> This is about a requirement that businesses publish customer lists in a
> publically available forum where their competitors or anyone else who has no
> business with the information can get to it.  This is a solution to stop the
> ********s out there from farming my SWIP information and calling my
> customers to solicit their business.
> 

And what exactly prevents you from doing the same thing to the ********s 
out there?

The way it is right now it's a Mexican Standoff.  People don't raid 
customer lists via SWIP because they have their own lists out there and
can in turn be raided by the people they are raiding.

Keep in mind the DNS system went through this issue as well.  They
went to an opt-in privacy format, where ISP's had to indicate when 
registering a domain that it would be private, rather than ISP's having
to indicate that it would NOT be private.  Some ISPs did this but from
what I've seen today, very few ever did this because it results in more 
work for them since they now have to handle queries for customers.

The thought was that this would prevent companies like Domain Registry 
of America and other predatory registrars from hoovering up customers. 
But after time guess what happened - the general populace got burned 
enough that people nowadays all figure that anytime they get a domain 
registration renewal solicitation that it's a scam.  In other words, 
word got around.

You have to have some faith that your customers are smarter than the 
average stump.  And the fact of the matter is that the stupid customers 
almost always cost you more money in the long run than you ever make 
from them - you might as well let your competitors have them.

Ted