Domain Privacy Ruling Comments

[Nathan Parker <nparker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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.
- Everyone deserves the right to privacy.
- No one’s personal information should be revealed without a court order, 
regardless of whether the request comes from a private individual or law 
enforcement agency.

Private information should be kept private. Thank you.

As a web design professional, my clients, whether personal or commercial, 
depend on WHOISGUARD domain privacy protection to protect their domain's 
personal information and ensure they are protected from scammers and spammers 
utilizing their personal information for nefarious purposes.

Before we begun implementing WHOISGUARD across the board for all of my web 
design clients, my clients were placed into a position of the possibility of 
becoming victims of being scammed out of large sums of money, and my clients 
were victims of excessive spamming and junk mail. Scammers would call my 
clients masquerading as their "web hosting company" asking for "large sums of 
money" to "monitor their web site(s)" and "ensure their site(s) remain online". 
Had my clients have not utilized the sense in contacting me first to ensure 
this was indeed legitimate (in which upon investigation, I informed them it was 
not), my clients would have been scammed out of large sums of money due to the 
fact that their WHOIS domain information was currently leaked out to the 
public. My clients also continued to be bombarded with spam and junk mail 
during the time they were without WHOISGUARD domain privacy protection enabled 
on their domains, again soliciting my clients for large sums of money.

Since enabling WHOISGUARD domain privacy protection for my clients across the 
board, my clients are no longer victim or subject to further scammers and 
spammers infiltrating their lives. It has been the only way my clients have 
been able to continue to peacefully operate a website presence without being 
subject to such harassment.

ICANN would be making a devastating and detrimental mistake to the Internet by 
denying WHOISGUARD domain privacy protection to any clients that request it. My 
clients are perfectly fine with paying for the privilege and do not expect 
WHOISGUARD domain privacy protection to be handed to them for free. However, to 
deny WHOISGUARD domain privacy protection to any of my clients, personal or 
commercial, is going to put their web operations in a detrimental position 
concerning their breach of privacy, and ICANN is potentially "declaring war" on 
these clients and their respected web designers.

If ICANN proceeds with denying any clients access to WHOISGUARD domain privacy 
protection, I only see a few directions web hosting providers, web designers, 
and or website owners can take concerning this matter:

1. When a website owner has been scammed or have had its personal information 
violated in a way that would cause financial damage to the website owner, the 
website owner will need to seek legal action against ICANN for the monetary 
damages suffered to the website owner as a result of ICANN's denial of their 
WHOISGUARD domain privacy protection.

2. Web hosting companies and/or web designers are going to have to begin 
"falsifying" WHOIS information in the database as a means to protect website 
owners' personal information. Doing so may be against ICANN's policies and/or 
against the law, but it is a measure ICANN will force web hosting companies 
and/or web designers into if it proceeds with this ruling.

3. Commercial companies who do not agree to ICANN's ruling can simply 
decommission their websites and utilize other means of advertising, putting 
commercial businesses in a position where it is no longer viable for them to 
maintain the quality of a web presence they have now. Doing so would be 
destructive to the operations of the web.

Why ICANN would consider such an ignoramus and devastating ruling that would 
jeopardize the web is beyond the understanding of web designers such as myself. 
It is a ruling that I hope will be shot down by ICANN so the privacy of website 
owners can remain in effect.

Thank you for listening and for your time.

Prayerfully yours,

Nathan Parker

President/CEO
Mallard Computer, Inc.

Tomorrow's Technology. Today's Ministry.™

"Obey God and leave all the consequences to Him." -Charles Stanley

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