Extortion Fees For Privacy

["Mike McComber 206.328.2498" <mccomber@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

The whois database should be protected from public view by default for all the 
reasons listed by register companies using scare tactics to justify charging 
their customers extra money when registering a domain to keep their information 
from being exposed on the internet. These register companies all provide a list 
of bad things that will happen because your information you are required to 
provide when you register a domain will be publicly available. But for a fee 
they will hide or “protect” your information for you like if should have been 
in the first place. It is the very definition of extortion. 
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/extortion?s=t Some register companies 
are doubling the cost of registration to provide this “service” which amounts 
to an extortion fee. These companies all blame ICANN while profiting off the 
ability to provide privacy while the customer can't and is extorted. ICANN 
should not enable these predatory register companies to extort their customers!

In essence these register companies threaten to make your information available 
on the web unless you pay them their fee. That is not a service, it is 
extortion. A service would be paying extra to have your information available 
to the public. Some companies will offer “protection” for the first year for 
free but than charge you the extortion fee for every year after that.

When registering a domain the customer should have control, not the register of 
making the registration information public or private. 

Companies which charge extortion fees:
https://www.name.com/whois-privacy
http://www.domain.com/domains/whoisprivacy.bml
https://www.namecheap.com/security/whoisguard.aspx
http://www.netregistry.com.au/domain-names/domain-privacy/
https://www.godaddy.com/domainaddon/private-registration.aspx

Companies working to solve this issue:
https://support.google.com/domains/answer/3251242?vid=0-635768889061081556-1257261615#private-registration-settings
http://www.1and1.com/domain-names#your-domain
https://www.gandi.net/domain/whois/