WHOIS privacy

[Deborah Taylor-Pearce <dtp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear ICANN --

Regarding the proposed rules governing companies that provide WHOIS 
privacy services (as set forth in the Privacy and Policy Services 
Accreditation Issues Policy document):
I am an independent scholar who has registered several dot-com 
websites, the first of which launched in 2004. All are experimental 
scholarly hybrids which embrace what has been called the "emerging 
Wild West in academic publishing."
As a pioneering content creator in this Wild-West netscape, I am 
always on the lookout for new business models that might help defray 
the exorbitant costs of doing and publishing post-doctoral, archival 
research.
In order to avoid potential conflicts of interest, protect the 
integrity of my scholarship, and maintain creative control over my 
intellectual property, I do not accept advertising or seek 
crowdfunding or other investors, but I *do* solicit donations, and may 
one day sell swag to make ends meet. To this extent, my scholarly 
websites are values-driven (rather than profit-driven) commercial 
enterprises -- in many ways, "more NON-PROFIT than many 
not-for-profits" (to quote one of my favorite arts organizations, yet 
another struggling social business).
Preferring to research, write, design, and code, I don't have time to 
engage in aggressive marketing campaigns, and the few donations I 
receive from appreciative vsitors to my websites don't even begin to 
pay the bills.
And yet, because of this modest entrepreneurial activity, it is now 
proposed that I -- a "sole proprietor," who gives away my intellectual 
property -- be treated as though I were Wal-Mart or Citibank or part 
of the thriving Big Commerce juggernaut on the Web. All of these 
dot-com entities have corporate IT departments and employees who are 
paid to be WHOIS registrants and interact with the public using 
corporate addresses and phone numbers which shield them personally 
from the threats of complainants.
I have no such protective bureaucracy in place.

My dot-com identity is inseparable from my personal identity, and 
while I agree that both ought to be accountable to their publics, I 
also believe that both should be able to control public access to 
confidential information. But under the new rule for privacy providers 
that ICANN is considering, the human person will end up with fewer 
rights to privacy and due process than the corporate person.
I have been using a WHOIS privacy service since March 2006, when I was 
first contacted by a stalker who accessed my personal contact data 
from the WHOIS database. Clearly, no proxy registration service can 
guarantee my online privacy 100%, but such a service is indispensable 
in protecting website owners like me from harassment, intimidation and 
identity theft. After so many years running widely-visited scholarly 
websites with an international following, I have had to become a 
zealous defender of my personal data. I not only rely on a WHOIS 
protection service for this, but I also refuse to participate in 
social media, in order that I can keep my private life private and, 
for the most part, off-line. This frees me to speak out on 
controversial issues -- such as gun rights, having recently produced a 
digital edition of the first debate over gun control in America, 
printed in 1684, for one of my dot-com websites -- which make me a 
target for all manner of disgruntled individuals trolling the Internet.
After years of prudently practicing safe computing, I am alarmed to 
learn that special interests, seeking unrestricted access to domain 
holders of websites even vaguely associated with "commercial 
activity," want to out me to the world ... and damn the consequences.
This should not be allowed.

I urge you to maintain the *status quo*, whereby my confidential 
information is protected by a WHOIS privacy service and can not be 
revealed to others, whatever their interests in me, without a court order.
Thank you.

Deborah Taylor-Pearce, PhD
Independent Scholar and Communications Research & Design Consultant