This is not a legitimate legal review as no specific laws are referenced and there is no description of how they went from some unspecified law to the actual practices by RIPE of restricting access to whois. This is confirmation that there has been no legitimate legal review and RIPE staff just makes things up as they go along to please a small number of people who run everything. What a joke. On 4/12/2012 10:57 AM, Athina Fragkouli wrote:

Dear colleagues,

Current rules regarding bulk access to the data held in the RIPE Database were set based on the work of the Data Protection Task Force, which concluded its work in 2011. At that time, the DPTF published a report on it's activities and outcomes, which was published here: https://www.ripe.net/ripe/groups/tf/dp/report-of-the-ripe-data-protection-ta...

Recent discussion on this list has suggested that a clear overview of the legal background to the framework and procedures proposed by the DPTF may help foster better community understanding of the RIPE Database rules and the justification behind them.

In the interests of transparency and understanding, the RIPE NCC has produced a report that provides the legal analysis and background of all proposals made by the DPTF. This report, which is intended to complement the original DPTF report, is available now at: https://www.ripe.net/data-tools/support/documentation/legal-framework-and-pr...

Kind regards,

Athina Fragkouli Legal Counsel RIPE NCC