Hari Ravichandran, the CEO of our parent company, Endurance International Group, recently wrote an op-ed for Entrepreneur.com on Internet Privacy, and the responsibility that Internet companies have in making the Internet a safer place. His viewpoint centered around a proposal that is currently in front of ICANN – the governing body of the Internet and domain names – which could affect privacy services available to domain owners today, particularly business owners.
Today, when you register a domain name (whether it be for an individual use or for a business), you have the option to purchase privacy services to protect your personal information from public view, including home address and email address. Not only do privacy services keep your information private, it protects individuals and corporations from identity theft and can potentially ensure physical safety.
With the changes to the current privacy services, the proposal would limit the use of privacy services for domains classified as ‘corporate use’. This would hurt many small business owners as they would no longer be able to purchase privacy “proxy” services.
A second potential change could be damaging as it requires privacy providers to disclose personal information about domain owners to third parties who are alleging International Property infringement. At stake here is the privacy of loosely defined owners of ‘commercial use’ domain names, and their ability to protect themselves and their business.
We are all in this together. Mr. Ravichandran has been an outspoken opponent of these new proposed changes to privacy policies being considered by ICANN. But as a business owner, what can you do? By visiting SaveDomainPrivacy.org you can read more about the potential changes, express your concerns, and sign a petition to support the protection of privacy online.
