Re: What about proxies?
The thing is, you pay for the proxy service.
It sounds like the ICANN proposal to its governance board was to run a similar type of scheme, but who would pay for it? Without adding costs to the domain registration, they wouldn't be paid, so it's no wonder they refused.
I suppose the nearest "official equivalent" to the proxy idea would in effect be a way to force European users to pay for such a service - either via a proxy service like you use, or a domain surcharge to pay for an ICANN run scheme.
As for the issue of law enforcement, the arguments cited in the article are bollocks.
If law enforcement need the domain owners details, they can contact the registrar the domain was bought from. They are the ones who maintain the databases that make up the public whois database after all!
In addition, the registrar will hold personal/billing details. Whilst it's possible that they have been faked, as they are not public, and are likely to have credit card billing information, they are going to be far more accurate than the public database - and any person registering a domain with criminal intent who doesn't register with real billing details will not have real details on the currently public view either!
Biting the hand that feeds IT
