Drop WHOIS obligations for privacy protection and for lack of consensus
As an individual internet domain name owner, I value my personal privacy very much. So on top of paying to register for my domain name, I also pay to protect my privacy by not having my personal information listed for all to see. I essentially agree with Prof. Wendy Seltzer's carefully reasoned analysis of the issues, http://forum.icann.org/lists/whois-comments-2007/msg00140.html In particular, I want to quote these words by Prof. Seltzer for special emphasis of my agreement with them, "ICANN has mandated collection and display of this information as a legacy of old practices, not because there has been any agreement that it should be so. There's no reason one should have to give up privacy in order to get a stable identifier for online speech. There has never been consensus on the status quo. That's important because ICANN is supposed to be a consensus-driven organization. Yet intellectual property interests, who see WHOIS as their own data-mine, have managed to stall any movement away from the status quo. As they're trying to do again now. The specifics of the current debate, apart from the substanceless comments filling the forums, is a proposal to allow domain registrants to substitute an "Operational Point of Contact", or OPOC, in the public listing. While all their private information would still be collected, it need not be published. Instead, the OPOC would route messages to the right recipient, for operational, technical, or legal inquiries." I am writing to support motion 1, the 'Operational Point of Contact' (OPoC) proposal. If that fails to pass, I will then support motion #3 to eliminate "all contractual obligations which require registrars to display domain name ownership and contact details." Best Regards, Kempton Lam Calgary, Canada ------------------------ -- blog: http://kempton.ideasRevolution.com -- email: kempton@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx |