Re: Privacy & Proxy Services Accreditation

[Kyle Cunningham <kyle@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

To whom it may concern:
I am writing in regards to the current proposal to remove the ability to
cloak domain name registration using privacy & proxy services.

I'm a web developer, and I own a consulting company building websites and
web applications for companies across the United States and the world.

When I had gotten into web development, I created a website so that I could
get my name out to potential clients.  It's also a place that has allowed
me to record many of my thoughts and share them with people all over the
world.

However, I was only able to do this because I was allowed to keep my home
address private when registering for a domain name.  As I was a student,
there is no way if could have afforded to pay for offices where I could
otherwise register my address. In short, it would have been very difficult
to start my career without the ability to hide my address.

While the internet contains immense value, it's unreasonable to post your
home address online for anyone to be able to see.  It makes it easier to
steal identities, and for people who disagree with your opinions to
potentially harass you.

It's safe to say that it would have been much harder to start my business
and my career without a reasonable expectation of privacy online.  Removing
this privacy would be highly detrimental to the continued development of
the web. While I have an office today, there are many people starting out
just like I did 10 years ago. They have a great idea they want to build for
everyone, but it would be ridiculous to ask them to surrender their privacy
(and potential safety) to do it.

My understanding is that many entertainment companies are backing this
proposal to help stop piracy. While that's a reasonable thing to do, there
is nothing stopping them from obtaining subpoenas if people are pirating
content. Current systems already allow companies to combat piracy, and
there no reason to sacrifice privacy for questionable gains elsewhere.

Best,
Kyle Cunningham
Chief Manager - Code Incarnate Technologies, LLC.