Quoting Don Cameron on Friday August 17, 2001:
|
| [..] 
| We expect our suppliers to respect the confidential nature of our
| transactions. We expect our suppliers to operate in an ethical manner. We
| expect our suppliers not to divulge our information to a third party. We
| expect our suppliers to belong to appropriate industry bodies, and to follow
| acknowledged industry codes of behaviour. In return for these expectations,
| we pay a good price for quality goods and services. If our expectations are
| not met, we shop somewhere else.
| 
| I just wonder if the IT industry has really caught up with these realities
| yet?

You expect that from most industries. I think 99% of the IT industry
respect the confidential nature of transactions, operate in an ethical
manner, belong to appropriate industry bodies, and follow codes of
behaviour.  Despite all that you still have some bad apples.

Without going into circles, I'm not sure exactly what you propose the
industry can do about these?  auDA can and does educate consumers and
industry on what is right and wrong.  To date this has been limited by
the fact auDA doesn't really have any authority and has limited resources,
but this role will surely grow soon.

auDA also can enforce standards on registries and registrars when the
new regulatory regime comes into force.

I think the major mistake in .au circles to date is that in the past
the AUNIC data was available freely to download in bulk. auDA is now in
charge of AUNIC and has removed access to be able to do that. But the
data that was there got out, and can't be taken back.

kim
(not speaking for auDA)