Regarding WHOIS privacy

[Matthew Siko <msiko@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

To Whom It May Concern:

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 ICANN to reject any rule changes that would disallow, or otherwise 
diminish, the ability of domain owners to protect the privacy of their WHOIS 
information.

In many countries, there already exist laws, or legal standards and processes, 
by which the release of personal information to the government, or to any other 
party, may be sought.  ICANN should respect the sovereignty of these countries, 
and their agency to establish their own legal requirements for disclosure of 
this sort of information.

Compelling domain owners to reveal their WHOIS information is likely to yield 
negative consequences for these owners, including the potential for increased 
spam and data mining of name, e-mail, phone, and address information that may 
become freely accessible if this rule proposal is adopted.  For the 
overwhelming majority of law-abiding domain owners, this is patently unfair.

Private information should be kept private. Please ensure that ICANN upholds 
governing principles that are consistent with protecting domain owner privacy.  
Thank you for your time.