Interestingly enough, I am now one of those people who uses these forms to determine owners of domains. See, as a Trademark attorney, I need to know to whom I can send a letter for someone who owns a domain which infringes on my client's marks. Without the whois verification process (which is only supposed to happen if the domain is registered with an incomplete whois record), there is no one to whom I can send the letter.

I might add, the warning letter is not just for the trademark owner's benefit; it is better that we might negotiate with a cybersquatter or what-have-you prior to instituting an UDRP action which will cost both sides $$$.

A useful solution to this problem, I believe, are the proxy companies, which can provide an agent for process-type situation for the domain registrant. Of course, that simply adds one more step of difficulty for me, but hey, that's what they pay me for.

Or use a hotmail address, and a P.O. Box. Don't know what to tell you about the phone number.

Decius wrote:
] ] "Bogus "Whois Problem Reports" are increasingly going
] ] from being an annoyance to being a real security risk.
] ] Some recent incidents I've experienced due to Whois
] ] Problem Reports *merely* being filed:
] ]
] ] * Dotster, about two weeks ago, threatened to delete a
] ] domain if I didn't respond.
] ]
] ] * BulkRegister, just yesterday, threatened to suspend a
] ] domain if I didn't respond within 5 calendar days.
]
] Anyone can go to ICANN's webform and submit a complaint about
] any website. There is no human intervention because ICANN felt
] that there were few abuses of the system back when no body
] knew about it. You registrar will automatically generate an
] email and send it to you. If you don't respond within a very
] short period of time you loose the domain. The time to switch
] to registrars who protect anonymnity is now.

ryan is the supernicety wrote:
] Without the whois verification process (which is only
] supposed to happen if the domain is registered with an
] incomplete whois record), there is no one to whom I can send
] the letter.

While I realize it can be useful for you to have an address to file service, I don't believe that the burden should be on them to have to provide this address (and phone) in order to put content on the internet. First Amendment activity should not be restricted to situations that are convenient for trademark prosecutors.

1. Most websites volunteer some sort of contact information. Send an email.
2. In the case where there is no contact information at all, you can contact the ISP hosting the site, or the domain name registrar. You can often obtain contact information for customers from these people through a court process if they are not willing to forward your message voluntarily.
3. I realize that the UDRP is designed to avoid the costs of trials, but they contact the email address associated with the domain, too.

You can't require people engaged in speech to provide an address to help them help you let them know that they are about to be prosecuted for IP crimes. They ought to provide the contact information they want to provide, knowing that such a process is a risk, and if the UDRP arbitrators can't get a hold of them, and they feel that your claim is legitimate, then you win the domain.

] A useful solution to this problem, I believe, are the proxy
] companies, which can provide an agent for process-type
] situation for the domain registrant.

That seems reasonable until you really think about it.

1. Why can't my domain name registrar simply not publish my personal information in the first place? Why does there need to be a second entity called a proxy because my registrar is contractually required to publish my info. End the publishing requirement and you accomplish the exact same thing. You contact the registrar to get in touch with me, instead of the proxy, and this has the added advantage of reducing costs. Presently proxied registrations cost twice as much as normal ones.

2. Proxy companies do not allow you to host content on proxied domains that is "morally objectionable." Ultimately what that means is that ICANN has written their own version of the first amendment for the entire internet, and it isn't the one we're familiar with. You have a first amendment right to speak without putting your name, address, and phone number on everything you write, but on the internet the only way you can exercise that right is to use one of these proxy services, who will enforce an "anything remotely questionable" standard on your content that is much more restrictive then the standard the courts would hold. The end result is that speech is chilled.

Here is an article I wrote on this last summer:
http://www.circleid.com/article/630_0_1_0_C/