ISP Privacy Proposal Draws Fire

“A proposal to let Internet service providers conceal the
contact information for their business customers is drawing fire
from a number of experts in the security community, who say the
change will make it harder to mitigate the threat from spam and
malicious software.

“The American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) — one
of five regional registries worldwide that is responsible for
allocating blocks of Internet addresses – later this month
will consider a proposal to ease rules that require ISPs to publish
address and phone number information for their business
customers.

“The idea has support from several ISPs that claim the current
policy forces ISPs to effectively publish their customer lists.

“”I operate in a very competitive business, and there are
instances where I can show that my competitors have gone out and
harvested customers’ contact information and used that to try to
take those customers away,” said Aaron Wendel, chief technical
officer at Kansas City based Wholesale Internet Inc., and the
author of the proposal. “I have yet to find another private
industry that is not government-related that requires you to make
your customer lists publicly available on the Internet.”

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