There seems to be yet another threat to our collective privacy every month or so. Normally, I sit firmly on the side of an individual's right to privacy, but in this case, I think ICANN have a legitimate point even if they're being quite heavy handed about it.
WHOIS is an extraordinarily valuable protocol with a heritage dating back to the ARPANET days. As an example, for quite a while we've had this ideal of the semantic web we're trying to move towards, but in practice each website is its own special snowflake with more concern given to legacy rendering in Internet Explorer than making sure that contact information is easily findable and semantic. But it's mostly okay, because if I really need to contact someone there's this almost 40-year-old protocol which gives me unfettered access to information such as a technical contact email and an address.
Many registrars don't seem to pay much attention to the quality of their WHOIS records and most people or businesses probably don't give it a second thought or check the records after registering a new domain. But they should; and I applaud ICANN for their efforts to uphold the quality and integrity of WHOIS.
That said, the right to freedom of speech implies that one should have the ability to disseminate ideas with complete anonymity. ICANN's proposal would completely undermine this, which is unacceptable.
I think there is space for a middle ground, where ICANN can ensure that the WHOIS records aren't what amounts to a blantant lie in the case of anonymous registrations (i.e the registrar providing their own details as the contact information). The current situation is pretty bad: if I want to contact the owner of such a domain, all I can reasonably expect is for any email sent to be blackholed by the registrar. I'm not talking about attempting to deanonymise the owner of such a domain, merely the idea that a domain is a named endpoint with an owner who is contactable through freely available means.
Imagine if ICANN created a new class of domains where it was made explicit in the WHOIS that the owner wished to remain anonymous, but nonetheless provided accurate information such as a pseudonym and a means of contact without violating their privacy. This means of communication could be some form of email hosted by a trusted third party, or potentially something more esoteric such as a GPG-encrypted message embedded in the bitcoin blockchain.
This would preserve the correctness and utility of the WHOIS database while respecting the rights I believe ICANN have a responsibility to uphold.
There won't be much semantic web left in anybody who is posting interesting things are too afraid to talk about them.
Also under your system I could still blackhole the email or just let it go straight to gmails archive.
You may need to contact me, but that doesn't mean I give a rats ass about what you have to say - frequently not being able to be contacted is more valuable than being able to be contacted (for one thing if you can't contact me you can't threaten me with a lawsuit if I don't remove some content that you object to) and anyway my blog accepts comments.
WHOIS is an extraordinarily valuable protocol with a heritage dating back to the ARPANET days. As an example, for quite a while we've had this ideal of the semantic web we're trying to move towards, but in practice each website is its own special snowflake with more concern given to legacy rendering in Internet Explorer than making sure that contact information is easily findable and semantic. But it's mostly okay, because if I really need to contact someone there's this almost 40-year-old protocol which gives me unfettered access to information such as a technical contact email and an address.
Many registrars don't seem to pay much attention to the quality of their WHOIS records and most people or businesses probably don't give it a second thought or check the records after registering a new domain. But they should; and I applaud ICANN for their efforts to uphold the quality and integrity of WHOIS.
That said, the right to freedom of speech implies that one should have the ability to disseminate ideas with complete anonymity. ICANN's proposal would completely undermine this, which is unacceptable.
I think there is space for a middle ground, where ICANN can ensure that the WHOIS records aren't what amounts to a blantant lie in the case of anonymous registrations (i.e the registrar providing their own details as the contact information). The current situation is pretty bad: if I want to contact the owner of such a domain, all I can reasonably expect is for any email sent to be blackholed by the registrar. I'm not talking about attempting to deanonymise the owner of such a domain, merely the idea that a domain is a named endpoint with an owner who is contactable through freely available means.
Imagine if ICANN created a new class of domains where it was made explicit in the WHOIS that the owner wished to remain anonymous, but nonetheless provided accurate information such as a pseudonym and a means of contact without violating their privacy. This means of communication could be some form of email hosted by a trusted third party, or potentially something more esoteric such as a GPG-encrypted message embedded in the bitcoin blockchain.
This would preserve the correctness and utility of the WHOIS database while respecting the rights I believe ICANN have a responsibility to uphold.