A comment has recently been posted to the IRTP-B Public Forum by a long-time domainer in support of the elimination of WHOIS privacy services (1). I'm glad to see folks finally stepping up and demanding that we end this practice. I venture that it won't be long before law enforcement and governments also start actively calling for the abolition of these services. You may recall that in late 2005 the NTIA notified Neustar (the company that administers .us) that proxy or private domain registrations will no longer be allowed for .us domain name registrations. We haven't seen any adverse consequences from this decision. The EPIC organization argued on behalf of anonymous interests, but failed to prevail (Peterson v NTIA) -- see http://pacer.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinion.pdf/061216.P.pdf Likely, a compromise position will be found that protects certain individual rights while ensuring the public interest. The at-large could make a powerful contribution by clearly articulating such a proposal in a discussion paper. (1) http://forum.icann.org/lists/irtp-b/msg00000.html