IP Holders Press For Access To WHOIS Data

Stony Stevenson writes to tell us that the battle for access to whois data remains at a stalemate this week. "In a blog post on the Internet Governance Project's (IGP) Web site, Milton Mueller, Professor and Director of the Telecommunications Network Management Program at the Syracuse University School of Information Studies and a partner in the IGP, details the Final Outcomes Report of the WHOIS Working Group, published on Tuesday, and inability of the various stakeholders to reach any kind of consensus."

I can hear the rationale now...

[Red_Foreman]

I imagine the board meeting went like this:

"Clearly, Simmons, everyone who has an internet connection is a potential criminal, and we need to keep tabs on these potential criminals in case they, at some point, intentionally break international copyright law."

"Here, here!"

"So we need access to this data, and if anyone opposes it - they must be hiding something other than just a guilty conscience."

"Besides, we're doing it for the children."

Re:The truth about Slashdot

[razorh]

I hate you! and so does my cat! don't you snookems? yes you do, you know you do, you're a good little kitty aren't you?

Vagueness

[benhocking]

The article summary is vague to the point that one is unsure what the subject of the article is.

My first thought was that the holders of internet protocol addresses wanted access to all of the data stored about them in the WHOIS database. I had to actually RTFA (the horror!) to figure out that IP meant intellectual property and not internet protocol.