Hi Maria,
To be honest, I’m not sure who highlighted the text or why. It wasn’t meant to be deleted by me, and nobody posted questions on it until now.
Regarding the harsh criticism…, to be honest I like the report in one regard; that it exhausts every means to describe the methods used to conduct the research as thoroughly as one would hope to expect. It is because of the excellent reporting of the methodology that it was relatively easy to spot flaws. I don’t know Clayton personally and don’t doubt that he is a great researcher, and I am glad to learn that he does good work on the privacy front. However, IMHO, I don’t see the sentence highlighted in yellow as being harsh criticism to him personally…, but rather an important part of a descriptive summary of our feedback in the conclusion of the statement. This is of course feedback on the results of the study, and not on his person. I hope he can make that distinction.
I say this, but would like to clarify that I am not the author of that specific sentence. I am in favour of it staying the way it is, unless a more favourable substitute can be drafted. I don’t think it gives the same message as the sentence that is in bold, but rather compliments it.
Still…, that is just my personal opinion, but if you feel strongly about it sending the wrong sort of message, I don’t mind taking it out.
Thanks Maria.
Amr
Hi Amr,
Just checking, is the statement marked in yellow; "
However, the methodology used here means that these research findings are fundamentally flawed, show bias and are therefore not a safe basis for policy development. "
Being deleted in favour of the one in bold below? I would support this deletion and substitution. While no doubt the study is flawed for the reasons we all know this stuff is more or less impossible to study comprehensively and fairly, Richard Clayton does a lot of good privacy and crypto stuff for ORG and I wouldn't like to criticise him as harshly.
While we appreciate the efforts of the research team led by Dr. Richard Clayton on the work done in an effort of producing the final report, we respectfully but strongly submit that the results of this study do not provide the necessary insight to support policy decisions at this time, and require more Whois privacy and proxy service abuse research being conducted.