[Foundation-l] Glad we are not in New Jersey

[Robert Scott Horning]

Gerard Meijssen wrote:

>Hoi,
>I found this http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/2006/Bills/A1500/1327_I1.HTM
>My question, if this happened in Florida, would we indeed insist on 
>knowing the names of our users ? Or would we say that our projects are 
>not a forum?
>
>Thanks,
>   GerardM
>  
>
I have no idea how they are going to enforce this law, as you are not 
even legally required to put correct addresses into contact information 
for top-level domain name registration.  Indeed, I've seen it suggested 
on some forums that if you register a domain name that you should *not* 
put in correct information, and I've seen addresses like "Somewhere in 
the middle of the Pacific Ocean" or "Utopia Plantia, Mars" as the 
address for the person listed as owning a domain regsitration.  The 
reason for putting incorrect information is to avoid spamming (including 
junk snail mail) or having some terrorist drop a bomb at your home address.

If the domain registration doesn't have to be correct, how can you 
require user information to be correct?  Or on what grounds can you 
supeona information?  Send a sheriff to Mars to deliver a summons? 
 There may be a paper trail with the domain registration agency in terms 
of who actually paid for the domain, but that would take some serious 
digging and require a search warrent as well.

None of this even addresses the legal knot of trying to see exactly what 
servers would be under New Jersey law.  Even if this were U.S. Federal 
law instead, the legal issues would be a mess just to see if a server 
could even qualify for enforcement of this law.

-- 
Robert Scott Horning