Please, reject proposal to reveal personal information

[Ф Алексей <f-aleksej@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hello, ICANN. Sorry for a possible duplicate - I sent you a message a few days 
ago but I'm not sure it got through.

Proposal that makes changes to how private personal information is presented 
will put in _physical danger_ a lot of people.

The proposal is not useful, because authorities can already (by a court order 
or a subpoena) access all information from WHOIS that they need - be it private 
or public. For everyone else, this change will mean that every stalker and 
person with malicious intentions in the World will know their home address and 
phone number.

Anonymity is crucial to freedom of speech and freedom of expression. Not giving 
people (that can't cope with the fact that someone else has an opinion that 
differs from theirs) the personal information in our post-9/11 World is crucial 
for personal safety (and safety of the family of the person that dared to state 
such an inconvenient opinion).

Also I should point out that we live in a World, where mob of angry people on 
social networks will do _everything_ to get person they don't like to be 
_fired_ - sometimes over such a simple issue as a misunderstood joke.

Coming from Russia (while not being one of the activist), I urge you _at least_ 
to think about all Russian political/human rights/LGBT/etc. activists with 
personal sites and their enemies. Enemies that would _love_ to know their home 
address. Enemies that don't stop with threats, but actually assault people.

Due to the popularity of social networks many of them already have problems 
with harassment, but accepting this proposal will result in punishing the 
careful ones.

Please, don't force reveal of private WHOIS information, be it for domains that 
are used for "commercial purposes" (activists _do_ accept donation money and 
have side projects) or not. Some activists use their real names/link to their 
side projects - side projects that are made for commercial purposes. And such 
connections _will_ be used against them.

Think about the artists that sell their work and that dared to go against 
conservative society's norms - they will have their life ruined by this 
proposal.

Think about the "swatting" in the USA, where there is a good chance that either 
person that is getting swatted will be shot, or a member or their family will 
be injured in the process. And that "swatting" can happen just because some 
troll didn't liked someone's opinion.

Don't forget, that displaying one's personal information can easily lead to 
identity theft.

Proposal is not worth it - arguments against eliminate already weak arguments 
pro.

I urge you to respect privacy of site owners and Internet users. Everyone 
deserves the right to privacy and 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. Do not ban domains used for 
commercial (or any other) purposes from using proxy registration services.

Best Regards,

Filinov Alexey.

P.S. English is not my first language - sorry for broken grammar.