To whom it may concern,
After having read about proposed changes to how WHOIS displays personal information about .nz domain name holders, I would like to tender my submission.
I understand that it is important to know who owns any particular domain name, and to have relevant details about them (contact details, etc).
Further, I also understand that it's important, for transparency reasons, that anyone can look up a domain name in the WHOIS registry, see who owns it, and be able to contact them.
I do not agree, however, that publicly displaying someone's personal details - including phone number and physical address - are necessary. Indeed, it may be placing people into very vulnerable positions, or further threatening already-vulnerable people.
Contactable is not the same as, essentially, doxxing everyone who holds a domain name.
I understand that some people may use business addresses and phone numbers. There are two problems with this as a solution to the above issues:
- not everyone has business details they can use.
- it's not clear that business details are acceptable when one is registering a domain - unless the domain is specifically being used BY a business, FOR a business (as an entity), I very much doubt people are putting down business details.
Further, I believe that requiring everyone who wants privacy to require one person's approval (or not) holds the following issues:
- one person doing this work is a single point of failure, and a bottleneck
- the process is extremely time-consuming/slow
- one person making decisions about the validity of someone's request for privacy has too much potential for bias, and/or accusations of unfairness
- one should not have to justify wanting privacy, particularly in this day and age.
I would encourage the DNC to amend how the WHOIS registry is dealt with to match Canada's - individual details are private by default. https://cira.ca/cira-privacy-policy
For Registrants who are individuals (e.g. as opposed to organizations), the privacy protection options are turned on by default, and only limited personal information is available to third parties when they search the WHOIS system for a Domain Name that you have registered. If you turn your privacy protection option off, more of your personal information will be available through the WHOIS system. Your privacy protections can be changed by contacting your Registrar.
When your privacy protection is turned on, the following information is visible:
Domain Name;
Domain Name status;
Creation date;
Expiry date;
Updated date;
Registrar name; and
Registrar number.