Joint letter to ICANN: New proposal will endanger domain owners and impact marginalized communities

Letter to ICANN. July 2015

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers
12025 Waterfront Drive, Suite 300

Los Angeles, CA 90094-2536



To the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers:



We are an alliance of digital rights groups, anti-harassment initiatives, media advocacy groups, women’s rights organizations, and private individuals.



We are writing to you about the Initial Report on the Privacy & Proxy Services published on May 5th, which proposes requiring “commercial website” owners to display their address under their WHOIS data. Broadly defined, this prevents millions of site owners from safeguarding their private information. We strongly oppose the Working Group’s proposal, which will physically endanger many domain owners and disproportionately impact those who come from marginalized communities. People perceived to be women, nonwhite, or LGBTQ are often targeted for harassment, and such harassment inflicts significant harm. The endemic nature of inequity online is a matter of deep concern for all of us, as we are working to make the Internet a safe and accessible place for all voices.



The proposal in front of ICANN would radically undermine progress in that direction, in part by making it far easier to dox domain owners. “Doxing” is the malicious practice of obtaining someone’s personal information (e.g. home address, phone number, etc) and making that information more readily and widely available. Doxing makes possible a wide range of crowdsourced harassment and intimidation, which includes everything from unwanted pizza deliveries to unrelenting barrages of rape- and death threats. Doxing also enables “swatting,” or calling in false tips that send a fully armed SWAT team crashing through a targeted person’s door. Public online directories give doxers, swatters, and stalkers alike easy access to their targets’ personal information.



Our concern about doxing is not hypothetical. Randi Harper, a technologist, anti-harassment activist, and founder of the Online Abuse Prevention Initiative, was swatted based on information obtained from the WHOIS record for her domain. The only reason law enforcement did not draw their weapons and break down Harper’s door was that she had previously warned her local police department about swatting.



Even the most limited definition of a “website handling online financial transactions for commercial purpose” will encompass a wide population that could be severely harmed by doxing, such as:

• Women indie game developers who sell products through their own online stores
• Freelance journalists and authors who market their work online small business
• Owners who run stores or businesses from their homes
• Activists who take donations to fund their work, especially those living under totalitarian regimes
• People who share personal stories online to crowdfund medical procedures.

To make things worse, the proposed definition of what constitutes “commercial purpose” could be expanded to include other types of activity such as running ads or posting affiliate links.



If implemented, the current proposal will chill speech—especially speech from people who lack access to lavish legal resources. It will be a generous gift both to harassers and to oppressive regimes. It will curb economic activity by adding untenable risk to using a website to promote one’s business or to collect donations, and may even add this risk to hosting ads. Women, people of color, and members of other marginalized communities, who are the most frequent targets of doxing, will be forced to take costly, speech-restrictive steps in order to protect themselves.



The WHOIS system is, in the words of ICANN’s own Expert Working Group on gTLD Directory Services, “widely regarded as ‘broken,’” but the proposed change will make WHOIS even worse. The proposal leaves domain owners with three options:

• Accept the risk of having their home address available to all
• Pay for a P.O. box—although that option is not available in every region or country
• Falsify their address information

Falsified information, however, puts domain owners at risk of having their domains terminate for breaching their registrars’ terms of service. Because the remaining options are either “public” or “pay,” domain owners who are targets or potential targets of harassment have a safety tax levied upon them. While some registrars currently charge a fee to withhold personal information from WHOIS, the current proposal will make an already-undue burden even more burdensome.



Although the working group stakeholders’ concerns about being able to verify consumer transactions and find information about businesses are valid, we did not find any evidence that Internet users are having difficulty getting information about businesses because of privacy and proxy services. Further, law enforcement agencies and copyright-holders are already able to access this information through existing legal processes. The unclear merits of this proposal cannot outweigh the inevitable harm that will follow from making millions of website owners’ personal information public. Even an ICANN working group recognized (in 2013) that in cases “where identification of speakers would cause a threat to their lives or those of their families,” individuals should be entitled to heightened privacy protection.



We strongly recommend that the proposed policy not be adopted. We further recommend that ICANN revisit its own findings from 2013 and move toward making WHOIS privacy the default for everyone. We believe that ICANN should not be complicit in making doxing, stalking, & swatting any easier than they already are. While ICANN certainly did not set out to exacerbate online harassment, that will ultimately be the result of this policy.



Signed,

 individually:

• Kendra Albert, Berkman Center for Internet & Society*
• Katherine Cross, CUNY Graduate Center*
• Nadia Kayyali, Electronic Frontier Foundation
• Randi Harper, Online Abuse Prevention Initiative
• Sarah Jeong
• Whitney Erin Boesel, Berkman Center for Internet & Society and MIT Center for Civic Media*
• Aaron Johnson, Computer Scientist
• Alicia Liu, Software Engineer
• Alison Macrina, Library Freedom Project
• Amanda Palmer
• Amber Yust
• Andi McClure, Indie Game Developer
• Andrea Horbinski, Organization for Transformative Works
• Andrew Losowsky
• Anil Dash, ThinkUp*
• Anita Sarkeesian, Feminist Frequency
• Anna Kreider
• Annalee Flower Horne, Activist and Small Business Owner
• Arthur Chu
• Ashley Judd
• Azure Jane Lunatic, Anti-spam Volunteer at Dreamwidth*
• Brianna Wu, Giant Spacekat*
• Bruce Schneier, Berkman Center for Internet and Society*
• Camille M. François, Berkman Center for Internet and Society*
• Caroline Sinders, Researcher/activist
• Charles Nesson
• Chris Kluwe
• Christine Love
• Claudio Guarnieri, Centre for Internet and Human Rights*
• Coraline Ada Ehmke, contributor—covenant.org*
• Cory Doctorow, Happy Mutants, LLC*
• Cynthia Fraser, Safety Net Canada*
• Dan Gillmor
• Dana Mangum, Executive Director, North Carolina Coalition Against Domestic Violence
• Danielle Keats Citron, University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law*
• David Goulet, The Tor Project
• David M. Perry
• David Mirza Ahmad, Subgraph*
• Emily Lindin, The UnSlut Project
• Erika Smith
• Erinn Clark, The Tor Project
• Ethan Zuckerman, Center for Civic Media, MIT*
• Faruk Ateş, Modernizr.js
• Fiona Barnett, HASTAC and Duke University*
• Griffin Boyce
• Helen Jamieson
• Harmony Rodriguez, Writer and Anti-violence Activist
• Harper Reed, Modest, Inc*
• Heidi Tandy, FYeahCopyright*
• Holly Jacobs, Cyber Civil Rights Initiative*
• Izzy Galvez, GWhois.org*
• J. Nathan Matias, MIT Center for Civic Media*
• Jack Cushman, Berkman Center for Internet and Society*
• Jaclyn Friedman
• Jacob Hoffman-Andrews, Block Together*
• Jacob Kaplan-Moss, Salesforce.com*
• Jacqueline Wernimont
• Jessica Moreno
• Jonathan Zittrain
• Joseph Reagle
• Kanane Jones, Indie Game Developer
• Kate Krauss, The Tor Project
• Katherine J. Mack
• Laura Bates, Writer and Founder, EverydaySexism *
• Laura Poitras, Praxis Films *
• Leigh Honeywell
• Lili_Anaz, Laboratorio de Interconectividades
• Lisa Nakamura, Gwendolyn Calvert Baker Collegiate Professor, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor*
• Liz Henry
• Lynn Harris, Feminist Journalist and Essayist
• Marcia Hofmann, Attorney
• Mary Anne Franks, University of Miami School of Law*
• Maryam Namazie, One Law for All*
• Matt Haughey, MetaFilter*
• Mehves Evin, Milliyet newspaper, Turkey*
• Mel Chua
• Melissa Elliott
• Michael Curry
• Michelle McNeil
• Nico Sell, The Wickr Foundation
• Nima Fatemi, Technologist/activist
• Nóirín “Trouble” Plunkett, Simply Secure*
• Renee Davidson, Writer
• Rey Junco, Iowa State University/Berkman Center for Internet and Society*
• Richard M. Stallman, Free Software Foundation*
• Risa Goodman
• Robert Faris, Berkman Center for Internet and Society*
• Runa A. Sandvik, Security Researcher
• Sands Fish, Harvard University*
• Sara Williamson
• Sarah Agudo, Medium*
• Selena Deckelmann, Open Source Programmer
• Sheri Rubin, Design Direct Deliver*
• Soraya Chemaly, The Women’s Media Center Speech Project*
• Sue Gardner
• Tarleton Gillespie, Microsoft Research New England*
• Thorlaug Agustsdottir, Pirate Party, Reykjavik*
• Toiya Kristen Finley, Writer
• Tom Leckrone, The Tor Project
• Urs Gasser
• Valerie Aurora, Ada Initiative
• Vivian Brown
• Wendy Seltzer, Board Member, The Tor Project
• Willow Brugh, Berkman Center for Internet and Society*
• Zoe Quinn, Crash Override Network

Organizations:

• Arizona Coalition to End Sexual and Domestic Violence
• ACCESS
• Ada Initiative
• Association for Progressive Communications
• Black Girl Dangerous Press
• bolwerK
• Breakthrough
• Chayn
• Crash Override Network
• Dangerous Speech Project
• Electronic Frontier Foundation
• End Domestic Abuse WI
• Feminist Frequency
• Fight for the Future
• Free Software Foundation
• Illinois Coalition Against Domestic Violence
• Iowa Coalition Against Domestic Violence
• Internet Democracy Project, India
• Jewish Women International
• Laboratorio de Interconectividades
• National Alliance to End Sexual Violence
• National Center on Domestic and Sexual Violence
• National Coalition Against Domestic Violence
• National Council of Women’s Organizations
• National Domestic Violence Hotline
• National Network to End Domestic Violence
• National Resource Center on Domestic Violence
• Nebraska Coalition to End Sexual and Domestic Violence
• Net Family News Inc.
• New York State Coalition Against Domestic Violence
• North Carolina Coalition Against Domestic Violence
• Online Abuse Prevention Initiative
• Organization for Transformative Works
• Peng! Collective
• Renewable Freedom Foundation
• Sonic
• Stop Street Harassment
• Subgraph
• The Tor Project
• The UnSlut Project
• The Wickr Foundation
• Virginia Sexual and Domestic Violence Action Alliance
• Women’s Media Center Women Under Siege
• Women’s Media Center Speech Project
• Women, Action and The Media
• Women’s Media Center
• Wyoming Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault

*Organizational affiliation listed for identification purposes only