<html> <head> <meta content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" http-equiv="Content-Type"> </head> <body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000"> >They should release information about you, to you. However, they should not release to you information about other people. Right, but the fact is most abuse people never consider any of this (including RIPE). They think privacy laws are there to protect them from spam but fail to consider that the information they collect also has privacy implications. the thought process being that people they agree with get privacy protection but people they don't like don't get any protection >This, actually, seems to be the cause of your confusion. It's still personal information under >EU law - you *do* get access, but you do not get *unlimited* access. There's a subtle difference. Yes, but that distinction does not make any sense. As a practical matter harvesters use many different IP's so blocking IP's has essentially no effect on harvesters, it just disrupts legitimate uses. Further, nobody can explain the legal issue of why the information should be protected in this manner after people agreed to have it published. People keep bringing up these issues but they can't explain the reasoning or point to any legal analysis that should have been done before initiating a policy change. Right now RIPE claimed to me a legal analysis was done but they won't give me a copy. RIPE made a different statement when they posted to this list saying sometimes they do a legal analysis of community decisions without specifically saying if they have an analysis for this issue. They won't say publicly that a legal analysis was done. It seems because they don't want the information to be public. I suspect the results were distorted when they reported it to the working group so they want to hide this legal analysis because it will show the community was deceived. >Could you elaborate how this topic is covered for this list? >Maybe it would be better to f'up tp RIPE NCC Services Working Group? I was directed here by RIPE. However, this topic is relevant to the list. I am pointing out how the entire system is flawed. For instance, the current proposal about abuse contacts is not properly being presented to the public. If the process were legitimate the legal opinions would be published for review. First you need to explain what types of information need protection and why. Then you need to explain why the abuse contacts are somehow fundamentally different. Why would abuse contacts be available in an unlimited manner while other contacts are restricted. This makes no sense and most people on this list want to avoid getting a real decision. My impression is that it is small group of people who treat abuse like a "religion." They seem to be against anyone with conflicting opinions and they harass and intimate people who have diverse opinions until they leave. Thank You <blockquote cite="mid:83EF9D5F-40F2-4A11-AF6B-E5C7CE4FA459@sussex.ac.uk" type="cite"> </blockquote> </body> </html>