Should WHOIS data be kept private? (yes)

The Final Outcomes Report of the WHOIS Working Group was published this week. Milton Mueller discusses it here.

The idea of having a third party, in this case, an“Operational Point of Contact” (OPoC), acting as a "buffer" between the personal data and prying eyes, a sort a data marshal that would assess whether a request for learning who is the owner of a domain site is legitimate or not, is a good one.

Having a way to shield personal data would prevent registrants to provide false registration when registering and thus, prevent such bill to be introduced: H.R. 3754,the "Fraudulent Online Identity Sanctions Act"(108th Congress) was never voted. It would have amended both the Trademark Act. Violating it would have been considered willful " if the violator (...) knowingly provided material and misleading false contact information to a domain name registrar, domain name registry, or other domain name registration authority in registering a domain name used in connection with the online location, or in maintaining or renewing such registration."

It also would have amended the Copyright Act : "In a case of infringement occurring at or in connection with an online location, the infringement shall be considered to be willful for purposes of this paragraph where the copyright owner sustains the burden of proving, and the court finds, that the infringer (...) knowingly provided material and misleading false contact information to a domain name registrar, domain name registry, or other domain name registration authority in registering a domain name used in connection with the online location (...)

Suppose someone would have registered a site, then post some copyrighted material on line, not knowing that he thus infringes a copyrigt: presumption of criminal infringement, if HR 3754 would have been voted. Thankfully, Copyright infringement is still only a crime ifs done "willfully" and "for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain", 17 U.S.C. § 506(a), not willfully for the purpose of protecting the privacy of one's personal data.