Comment on proposal for Privacy & Proxy Services Accreditation Issues

[Alex Cabal <alex@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello,

I'm writing to express my alarm over the recent proposal titled "Initial
Report on the Privacy & Proxy Services Accreditation Issues Policy
Development Process".

Today our privacy online and off is under attack from many powerful
actors: Dragnet-style data collection and storage by NSA and
governmental entities; data collection and analysis by private companies
like Facebook, Apple, Google; and more.

Personal privacy is a critical part of a successful democratic society,
and the Internet and its infrastructure is now an indelible part of
successful society.  It's critical for political dissidents, for ongoing
victims of crime, abuse, and discrimination, and for everyday
individuals.  We deserve the right to use Internet infrastructure in
private, because the Internet belongs to us all.

Requiring complete disclosure of domain registration information with a
fig-leaf-esque illusion of privacy is the wrong step in ensuring an
open, liberated, and successful Internet.  Corporations and government
are already closing their grip on our Internet; don't let them tighten
it further by bowing to demands for personal information in service of
"stopping evildoers" and "protecting intellectual 'property'".

Today's government already has a mandate to fight crime and power
unmatched in history to do it.  It doesn't need ICANN's complicity.
Corporations who complain about their intellectual "property" should
conduct enforcement as their own business, not place it as a burden on
the back of our Interent infrastructure.

I cannot condemn this proposal strongly enough.  Please reconsider it.