This is a kind of segue from previous threads .. and is my personal opinion only (as a non-lawyer) ICANN policy cannot and should not try to replace local law. Forcing registrars or their affiliates to get entangled in areas where there is already legislation is unreasonable. And if there isn't any legislation in a jurisdiction then that is an issue for government - not ICANN. Under Irish law we have S.I. No. 49 of 2007 which covers companies' obligations for disclosure on their websites. For those of you familiar with EU law, it's the Irish legislative transposition of Directive 2003/58/EC I've taken the liberty of attaching 3 documents from the ODCE (Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement) to this email which explain the obligations There should be similar legislation with respect to disclosure in the other member states of the European Union. Under the Irish legislation failure to comply can get you a fine of 100 Euro / day - which gets pretty expensive quickly :) Note: the obligation refers to websites and electronic communications - it doesn't refer to whois and to be honest I can't imagine my mother (my standard acid test) needing to know about whois. So in my view there's no reason why a commercial entity cannot use proxy / privacy in their whois if they're compliant with the law, should it exist, with respect to disclosure on their website. Regards Michele -- Mr Michele Neylon Blacknight Solutions Hosting & Colocation, Domains http://www.blacknight.co/ http://blog.blacknight.com/ http://www.technology.ie Intl. +353 (0) 59 9183072 Locall: 1850 929 929 Direct Dial: +353 (0)59 9183090 Fax. +353 (0) 1 4811 763 Twitter: http://twitter.com/mneylon ------------------------------- Blacknight Internet Solutions Ltd, Unit 12A,Barrowside Business Park,Sleaty Road,Graiguecullen,Carlow,Ireland Company No.: 370845