The agency that runs the Internet's technical infrastructure—ICANN—is mulling a plan pushed by the entertainment industry that could dramatically limit the use of proxy registration services that mask domain ownership.

Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) analyst Jeremy Malcolm and EFF attorney Mitch Stoltz said the content industry wants "new tools to discover the identities of website owners whom they want to accuse of copyright and trademark infringement, preferably without a court order."

ICANN is accepting comments on the proposal until July 7. Comments can be e-mailed to: comments-ppsai-initial-05may15@icann.org.

The proposal (PDF), if approved later this year, means that many domains would no longer be able to shield their WHOIS ownership information via a proxy registration service. As it now stands, proxy services are required to abide by their home countries' legal orders to fork over the actual domain owner's information—but the content industry complains that they don't always do so and that the proxies are difficult to contact.

Using a ownership proxy prevents a domain owner's real, private information from appearing on a WHOIS search. ICANN is considering not allowing domains used for commercial purposes to enjoy that layer of privacy, but what classifies as a commercial purpose? The EFF says that "sites that run ads have been judged as commercial in domain name disputes."

There have been thousands of comments submitted to ICANN over the issue. Many of them use the exact same language. Here's a comment from somebody identifying themselves as "Liquid Handshake:"

I urge you to respect Internet users' rights to privacy and due process.

- Everyone deserves the right to privacy.

- No one’s personal information should be revealed without a court order,

regardless of whether the request comes from a private individual or law

enforcement agency. Private information should be kept private. Thank you.

The entertainment industry, under a group called the "Coalition for Online Accountability," is backing the plan. It told (PDF) Congress last month that millions of domains "lurk in the shadows of the public WHOIS, through a completely unregulated proxy registration system that is the antithesis of transparency. These registrations need to be brought into the sunlight. While there is a legitimate role for proxy registrations in limited circumstances, the current system is manipulated to make it impossible to identify or contact those responsible for abusive domain name registrations."

The EFF's Malcolm and Stoltz strongly disagree. "The ability to speak anonymously protects people with unpopular or marginalized opinions, allowing them to speak and be heard without fear of harm," the two said. "It also protects whistleblowers who expose crime, waste, and corruption."