Freedom of speech, Free competition at risk

[Victor Hugo Soliz Kuncar <vexorian@xxxxxxxxx>]

Dear ICANN,

The proposed changes to WHOIS privacy would be just terrible.

In the current method, law enforcement is already able to, with due
process, obtain the registrar info if necessary.

Allowing any private individual to request this information without even a
court order would just put various people in a dangerous position:

Please consider the existence of online harassment and stalking which
usually escalates into physical risk. This would deter people in vulnerable
demographics from owning a domain name or will put those who do in risk as
it will become easier for those who hate them / stalk them to obtain
information. That kind of people are definitely not entitled to obtaining
it.

The combined effects of this change and online harassment will be a strong
blow on Online Freedom of Speech. People who make opinions who might be met
with opposition and hatred are specially vulnerable.

There also doesn't seem to be any benefit in these changes. Perhaps the
Entertainment Industry might be able to make an example out of a couple of
small domain registrars, but there's no evidence that this would reduce
copyright infringement.

Since a court order would still be necessary to shut down any services, I
fear that the objective from Entertainment Industry is to acquire the
ability to intimidate service orders into compliance without a court. Which
is massively worrying.

The overall effect of this change will be people in vulnerable positions
will be unable to obtain domain names and have to use centralized services
and be subject to their control. Small companies will become an easier
target for intimidation from monopolies.

Thank you for reading.