Domain Names Forum

I've just logged into the CIRA registrants area, that's much improved too - they've added what could be considered basic information (such as registrant details and a list of .ca domains under that registrant name), and there is the option to switch on or off the whois privacy.

Faced with the prospect of a privacy balance, special interests representing law enforcement and trademark holders quietly pressured CIRA to create a backdoor that will enable these two groups (and these two groups alone) to have special access to registrant information. In the case of law enforcement, police can bring cases to CIRA involving immediate risk to children or the Internet (ie. denial-of-service attacks) and CIRA will hand over registrant information without court oversight. In the case of trademark holders (as well as copyright and patent owners), claims that a domain name infringes their rights will be enough to allow CIRA to again disclose registrant information. This represents a stunning about-face after years of public consultation on the whois policy. While the law enforcement exception appears to be narrowly tailored, the exception for trademark, copyright, and patent interests undermines a crucial part of the whois policy, namely compliance with Canadian privacy law (the policy now arguably violates the law) and the appropriate balance between privacy and access.

[cira.ca...]

It's disappointing that the carefully-planned policy agreed on by voting CIRA members has been modified without consultation, and that the policy - which was implemented in large part in order to comply with Canadian privacy legislation - now appears to fail to respect those laws.