Re: NSI Bulletin 098-010 | Update on Whois

[Dean Anderson <dean () av8 com>]

You are saying that "pummelling the database resources" for marketing info
is bad. I presume by pummeling, you mean doing whois queries.  Of course,
if the database is sold on a CDRom by NSI, then there is no wasted network
resources, and hence no "pummeling"

While I agree that network whois queries to NSI for marketing information
may not be appropriate or at the least, the best use of resources, I don't
see that using the information (after appropriately obtaining it) for
marketing purposes is wrong.  Culling contact information for marketing
products is no different than getting conference attendee lists for
marketing purposes.  Thats just how the system works.  You need the
marketing information on new products as badly as the companies need to
distribute information on their products to make sales.

I think the problem of whois database ownership is important because of the
potential for unfairness on the part of NSI.  Everyone should have equal
access to the information.  If ESnet gets the whole database in a day, and
smaller providers get partial access in a say, a week, or not at all, that
is a big source of unfair competitive advantage.  That should not be
allowed to happen.

                --Dean

At 02:55 PM 9/2/98 -0500, Andy Walden wrote:
> > > Yes. Thats not the intent of the whois database in my opinion. Marketing
> > > and general greed causes the most problems on the Internet and generates
> > > the most instances of someone trying to exploit something for the almighty
> > > dollar.  
> >
> > for, or rarely the admin contact), but for others it is the company name.
> > What makes their use "WRONG" and mine "RIGHT"?
>
> Your not doing it for profit's sake, en mass, without consideration for
> resources. You manually do a whois when you need a piece of information
> about a domain that probably has to do with some technical issue. A
> marketing leech would just find a tech guy to write him a program that
> would pummel the database so he could use that information to make himself
> a profit. That wasn't the intention of the database. What about querying
> other database's for marketing information. Such as public court documents
> (i'm not sure what the intended market would be), but thats just not the
> intended use of the information provided. People exploiting the situation.
> Yeah, I know welcome to the real world and such...just stating..
>
>
> -andy
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           Plain Aviation, Inc                  dean () av8 com
           LAN/WAN/UNIX/NT/TCPIP          http://www.av8.com
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