I am the chair of the ACM's US Public Policy Committee.? ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery http://www.acm.org, is an educational and scientific society uniting 80,000 of the world?s computing educators, researchers and professionals to inspire dialogue, share resources and address the field?s challenges.??The ACM U.S. Public Policy Committee (USACM) www.acm.org/usacm serves as the focal point for ACM?s interaction with U.S. government organizations, the computing community, and the U.S. public in all matters of U.S. public policy related to information technology.?

We have been informed that recently ICANN approved a new policy about disclosure of information (privacy)? held in the "whois" database.? ?We have also been informed that this new policy is being reconsidered as a result of intense lobbying by various organizations.

The attached is an official policy document of USACM with 24 recommendations for protecting the privacy of personal data held in collections such as the "whois" database.? We would ask that you refer to this as a form of "best practice" for the protection of personal information.? ?Although we are not in a position to register any specific, formal statement regarding your decision of final disclosure rules for the "whois" data, we urge you to consider your decisions in light of our privacy recommendations, and to make decisions consistent with those recommendations.? To do so is to provide appropriate privacy to the Internet public.