Hi all,
As others have mentioned, probably the most serious examples of this
will likely come from MENA, where a number of political bloggers have
suffered great repression at the hands of their respective governments,
and whistleblower sites.
Here are some specific examples where anonymity of (mostly)
websites/blogs has been important:
* blogs by anonymous employees about their employers (see this one by
a police officer in the UK which shut down after the officer's
identity was exposed, even though it seems he committed no legal
wrong:
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jun/21/nightjack-blog-blogging-police>;
* Bloggers blogging about sensitive or embarrassing topics like a 'sex
blogger' (not sure what that is, but sounds sensitive : P)
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2009/jun/16/blogging-medialaw>;
or about debilitating medical conditions
<http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1363873/Terminally-ill-cancer-patient-blogs-anonymously-51-hours-taking-fatal-overdose--tomorrow.html>;
<http://thyroidcancersurvivormystory.blogspot.ca/>;
* students criticizing teachers
<http://www.dmlp.org/threats/butler-university-v-zimmerman> &
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stu-kreisman/guantanamo-bay---college_b_333786.html>;
* whistleblower sites (here's one related to leaked documents
regarding McGill university's funding outreach campaign:
<www.mcgilldaily.com/2013/04/mcgillleaks-releases-confidential-documents-through-ssmu-email/>;
* political satire at time of election
<http://www.torontolife.com/informer/toronto-politics/2010/08/10/ford-campaign-sends-lawyers-to-muzzle-satirist/>.
* Wikipedia has a pretty good SLAPPs page with more examples:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_public_participation#Notable_SLAPPs>
Perhaps more importantly, it's critical to note that the starting
presumption in many legal systems is anonymity. So for example, in
Canada, the U.S. and the U.K. (to my knowledge, but probably many other
jurisdictions as well), there is no right to get someone's identity
simply because you want to sue them (for alleged IP infringement,
defamation, etc.). You have to go through a process and prove, at
minimum, that you legitimately intend to sue and are not using the
discovery process simply as a means of identifying someone you don't
like. CIRA's policy seeks to replicate this, which seems reasonable.
Hope this helps.
Best,
Tamir
On 4/23/2013 5:21 PM, Robin Gross wrote:
> Dear All:
>
> One of NCSG's follow-up items on WHOIS coming out of Beijing was a
> special request from Stephanie Perrin, who is the only privacy
> advocate on the ICANN Board's Expert Working Group on Directory
> Services (aka whois).
>
> Stephanie needs for NCSG to assist her in coming up with a list of use
> case examples of why one needs an anonymous domain name registration.
>
> So if you know of any facts that describe a scenario that demonstrates
> the legitimate need to register a domain name anonymously, please let
> us know! Actually, please let Amr Elsadr know (cc'd here) who's
> agreed to keep track of this information for NCSG and feed it to
> Stephanie for her work on the working group.
>
> Stephanie came and spoke to NCSG during our open meeting in Beijing
> and asked for the help of our members in coming up with these
> examples. This is a great chance for us to provide direct input into
> an important process to protect privacy and anonymity rights on the
> Internet, so I hope you will send any thoughts you may have to Amr (or
> post to this list for collection also).
>
> Thanks for your help!
>
> Best,
> Robin
>
>
> IP JUSTICE
> Robin Gross, Executive Director
> 1192 Haight Street, San Francisco, CA 94117 USA
> p: +1-415-553-6261 f: +1-415-462-6451
> w: http://www.ipjustice.org e: [log in to unmask]
> <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
>
>
>
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