There's No Need to Change Your WHOIS Policies

[Craig Pierce <craigpierce@xxxxxxxxx>]

ICANN -

I see that the entertainment industry's so-called Coalition for Online 
Accountability is asking you to enforce a WHOIS policy change; that they want 
to make it so registrants can't use a private proxy WHOIS service.

This change would be both useless AND harmful.

Firstly, unless you're going to go through the considerable trouble of 
verifying each and every registrant's identity, then anyone can just submit 
whatever "identity" they want. Thus, it won't be any easier to catch anyone 
doing anything illegal - like media piracy - under the new policy.

Secondly, for anyone who can't or won't fill-in false registrant information, 
they become a target for real-world harassment. Anyone online would now be able 
to threaten any domain registrant for any reason they feel like - or, possibly 
worse, no reason at all.

In today's world of doxing and swatting and such, it would be unwise of you to 
enact a policy that A) is intended to benefit only a corporate entity B) won't 
even work as that entity intends and C) can only bring harm to uninvolved 
third-parties.

Thank you -
Craig Pierce, Los Angeles, CA