We are getting some press
interest in the privacy proxy issue. I encourage you all to get
people to sign on to the petition (savedomainprivacy.org) or send
in comments. Thanks to Cheapdomains, we have thousands of
individual comments on the website now
http://forum.icann.org/lists/comments-ppsai-initial-05may15/. I
thought I would share my comments to one of the journalists who
was looking for a couple of the basic questions on the privacy
proxy debate.
cheers
Stephanie Perrin
-------- Forwarded Message --------
I am a member of the non-commercial users constituency (NCUC)(
www.ncuc.org) at ICANN, and I am
a member of the PPSAI working group.
1. The issue of prohibiting use of privacy/proxy services by
registrants who engage in financial transactions on a website
raises several issues for me:
- many organizations which may be subject to discrimination
and harrassment use proxy services for their domain
registrations (eg. religious, environmental, or political
groups, women's groups such as rape crisis counselling,
maternal health and women's education initiatives, charities
and civil liberties groups, the list is very long). Many of
these groups accept donations, sell paraphernalia (mugs,
tshirts etc) or generate advertising revenue. Denying them
privacy proxy services may put them at risk
- ICANN's mandate is to deal with the domain name system.
Inquiring as to what individuals and groups do once they get
a website is somewhat outside of its remit.
- Asking registrars or proxy services to determine what a
registrant is going to (eventually) do with a domain name, is
impracticable.
2. The use of privacy/proxy services is necessary to protect
certain fundamental human rights of registrants, notably privacy,
freedom of expression, and the right to anonymous freedom of
assembly. Forcing registrants to place their confidential
information, including phone numbers and addresses, puts them at
risk and jeopardizes those rights.
3. I was one of several civil society representatives on the
working group. Please let me know if you wish to contact the
others.
Kind regards, Stephanie Perrin