Comments on WHOIS privacy restrictions

[Elías Snær Einarsson <eliaseinarsson@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,
As someone who uses WHOIS privacy services for all of my domains, I am
horrified by the suggested restrictions to WHOIS privacy services. I find
it completely unacceptable that WHOIS privacy could be bypassed without a
court order, simply by mentioning trademark or copyright violations. This
system would have a HUGE potential for abuse, and would effectively make
WHOIS privacy useless against exactly the kind of people that it's intended
to block, the kind that doesn't object to fraudulent copyright infringement
claims and similar underhanded tactics. This problem is only fixable by
requiring a court order to bypass WHOIS privacy. ICANN is not responsible
for being judge, jury and executioner, nor are they required to by any
interpretation of the law or any moral code.

If ICANN continues to think they can act as they please, alternative,
decentralized DNS schemes such as NameCoin will catch on a lot quicker, and
if the suggested restrictions to WHOIS privacy go through, it will be a
HUGE boost in the popularity of those schemes.

-Elías