Domain privacy

[Michael Virgilio <mikev@xxxxxxxxx>]

Dear ICANN –

Regarding the proposed rules governing companies that provide WHOIS privacy
services (as set forth in the Privacy and Policy Services Accreditation
Issues Policy document):

I urge you to respect internet users' rights to privacy and due process.

As the long time owner of a domain for personal use, I've experienced
having my personal information publicly available, and I've experienced
having my personal information hidden behind a company providing WHOIS
privacy services. I can assure you that without the privacy proxy service,
I probably would have given up my personal domain years ago. I've
experienced endless spam - both through the regular mail and through email,
because WHOIS privacy services didn't exist (or I didn't know about them)
over 17 years ago when I registered my domain. And since using a WHOIS
privacy service, I no longer receive any spam mail, and my spam email
folder is about 10 messages a day, down from over 2,000 messages in a
rolling 30 day period.

Please do ALL personal domain owners a favor. Please continue to allow the
use of WHOIS privacy services so that our personal information is not free
for the taking of anyone in the world.

Thank you.

Michael Virgilio