Best of the ISP-Lists

Fighting the Criminals through Co-operation

Webhosting businesses are perfect for criminals because e-business allows criminals to hide in the open. Members of the ISP-Webhosting list discuss exchanging customer profiles to fight crime and deadbeats.

[August 8, 2000]

On the ISP-Webhosting list in July, TM asked a not-so-innocent question:

"Would anyone here be interested in a 'customer blacklist' if there was one available?"

A number of respondents echoed EY's sentiments when he warned,

"I would be interested, but I hope you have a solution for the legal problems!"

Others ran with the idea:

[KH offered] "I don't know if I would call it a blacklist, but you could compile purely objective information, similar to a credit profile. Others would then review this info and make their own determination as to whether or not they want to do business with the applicant."

[FA added] "Insurance companies have a similar service for exchanging information on their clients, but it's not viewed under the same laws as credit bureaus — so perhaps that's a model to look at. Their list is not public; I don't know that there's a way to contest or even to see the information in their database."

[J suggested] "You can always maintain your own private blacklist, which is what we do; our billing system has a blacklist option so that we can make sure not to take on an undesirable again."

But two respondents added some more significant concerns:

[WW argued] "You would still have to comply with the same rules governing credit reporting agencies, including documentation of every negative report, notification to the customer when they've been turned down as a result, the right for the customer to have a free copy of their report with information on each company involved, the right for the customer to dispute information contained in their report, etc…. It's not as simple as you think or want it to be. Blacklists rarely are."

[JM added] "Even if it were the least bit legal, would you expect the larger hosts to supply input? Imagine that you just got burned by a customer to the tune of a couple grand. Hmm, what a perfect customer for my competitors; damned if I'm going to warn them! All you'd end up with is the mom-and-pop hosts banning a small percentage of the deadbeats."