The document seems to be drafted primarily servicing the need for
enforcing intellectual property rights. We argue for more cautious approach in dealing
with registrants' contact details, especially individuals' personal information
such as names, phone numbers, addresses and fax numbers. Also, local privacy
laws and international privacy principles should be respected, although
convenience for enforcing intellectual property rights is not totally
unimportant. Details comments follow.
Cordialement.
2. Collection and Availability of Registrant Contact Details
This policy reflects the concerns of intellectual property holders very
well, unfortunately at the expense of individuals' fundamental privacy rights. The
collection list of contact details includes many kinds of private information,
without any supporting argument for making it available except for the
convenience of property holders. The postal address, voice telephone number,
and facsimile number of an individual are the essence of personal information
that should not be so easily released to the public worldwide. A bigger problem
stems from the fact that the registrant does not have any option to refuse to
make this information available, which is often provided in real space (as in
the case of telephone directories). The distinction between individuals and
corporations may have to be made in this regard, as the privacy concern for
individuals is bigger than that for corporations. Organizations or associations
may also have to be provided bigger privacy protection !
than commercial corporations. There are many options of collecting and
releasing registrant data from making only the information whether the domain
name is registered or not available without releasing any personal information,
to collecting only the registrant's name, or name and e-mail address. Another
solution may be to make proxy information such as registrar's contact
information available and to require the registrar to comply to the request for
releasing the information when disputes arise. The pros and cons of these
different approaches should be fully discussed.
The current document presents the enforcement of intellectual property
rights as the basis for making wide variety of personal data available on the
Internet. However, privacy principles and regulations have equal or sometimes
greater individual and social significance, so should not be easily compromised
for commercial or business purposes. We hope to see in the document greater
respect for privacy laws in local jurisdictions, especially in the case of
closed cctlds.
We recognize the problem of bad faith registrants who attempt to
frustrate enforcement procedures by providing inaccurate or unreliable contact
details. However, rather than making the provision of inaccurate or unreliable
information per se the material breach of the contract, we recommend to
distinguish between real bad faith act and accidental provision of such
information by investigating facts of the case.
3. Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR)
The value of ADR may be different among different cctlds and according to local
situations. The current document focuses on the importance and benefit of UDRP
or UDRP-based dispute resolution systems and seems to underestimate particular
issues and possible difficulty in applying the resolution policy that is
originally developed for gtlds to cctlds. Further discussion seems to be called
for.