ICANN Planning to Get Rid of Domain Name Privacy
The following article is a heads up! If ICANN decides to get rid of domain name privacy, you can bet that I'm getting rid of my website.
http://news.softpedia.com/news/icann-planning-to-get-rid-of-domain-name-privacy-485142.shtml
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has filed aproposal which, if approved by its members, will do away with hidden registration details for commercial domain names.
This new rule, if adopted, will limit the users eligible for domain name privacy, only to those involved in non-commercial activities. So regardless if you're a corporation or an individual, domain registrations via a proxy will possibly not be available in the upcoming future.
The reason behind ICANN's decision is to facilitate legal procedures for entities embroiled in copyright battles over domain names.
Whilst with good intentions, ICANN's decision to push for such a narrow-minded proposal, shows a tremendous lack of vision for its non-corporate users.
Domain registrations via proxy will be unavailable for any commercial endeavors
Some of the weird cases where this new rule would come to put individuals in danger is for small entrepreneurs that have not incorporated and still use their own personal details to run a business.
This means that every mother with a blog which runs ads on it and allows her to make some money, in ICANN's vision, she should be forced to disclose her name, home address and other details to anyone that can use a WHOIS database.
Enforcing the new proposal will also be out of ICANN's hands, everything being done at the registrar and ISP levels, where they'll be forced to monitor user activity for all domains, and terminate privacy settings if any commercial activity is found on the site.
The most worrisome of all the proposal's clauses is the lack of any legal constraints when domain name or copyright disputes arise, domain registrars being "forced" to give away any user information to anyone "complaining" about it, without any type of warrant or court order.
Public comments on this proposal are still opened until July 7 and can be made onICANN's website, to the comments-ppsai-initial-05may15@icann.org email address, or you can go to the Save Domain Privacy website and sign their petition.
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