[AusNOG] ICANN to bring an end to TLD privacy?

[Brad Peczka]

At the behest of organisations such as MarkMonitor, ICANN is considering a policy change whereby domain holders with sites associated to "commercial activity" will no longer be able to protect their private information with WHOIS protection services. 

The text of the proposal can be found on ICANN's website at https://gnso.icann.org/en/issues/raa/ppsai-initial-05may15-en.pdf

Something worth noting is that the definition of 'Commercial Activity' appears to be quite wide, and will likely encompass a number of sole/small traders who operate under their own name, rather than a business. I personally feel that the auDA approach hits the happy medium - protecting a large amount of information from being publicly accessible, while still being able to see what entity is in control of a domain name.

If you're interested in commenting, the close date for submissions is 7th July... so get typing!

Regards,
-Brad.