Privacy and Whois (A continuing blog-dialog with Ross Rader)
FROM KARL AUERBACH - Privacy is a complex topic. The decision whether information is to be private or not is the result of a balance of equities. As in any such balancing act the weights assigned to the various equities frequently dictates the outcome. And loss of privacy is a ratcheting event - once privacy is breached, it remains breached. During the 1970s and 1980s privacy issues were distilled into collections of principles. These principles represent broad consensus of opinion among many actors, private and commercial, governmental and institutional. Many of these principles underlie imperative laws in many nations around the world and ought not be thoughtlessly disregarded. When a person discloses personal information a kind of rough social bargain is struck - the person makes a choice, perhaps unknowingly, to disclose or not to disclose based on that person's evaluation of the benefits to be obtained versus the costs and burdens to be... [CaveBear Blog]