[db-wg] Blocking Access to Personal Data Objects in the RIPE Database

Dear colleagues,

At RIPE 68, we again raised the issue of how the blocking mechanism works in the RIPE Database. Currently it is all or nothing — if a user queries for too much personal data, we block their access to everything.
  
We often find that this causes issues for legitimate users of the database. This is a recent example of the requests our Customer Services department receives:

"This is the outgoing NAT IP for a vast shared hosting cluster. We can't control the type of queries our customers run, there are over 250,000 websites, a tiny fraction might use RIPE but those customers are using RIPE database for a good reason and need to be able to query it. This is why I'm asking for a blanket allow.”

Clearly we cannot whitelist any IP address for unlimited access to personal data. However, the option to only block access to personal data objects when the limit is reached would be a great help in these situations.

No decision has been made on this issue. We are hoping that it can be further discussed by the community to see if a consensus can be reached.

Regards

Denis Walker
Business Analyst
RIPE NCC Database Team