I’d be interested to know the theory of how this works. ICANN does not determine who may or may not be liable for a domain name registration. If, for example, a trademark claimant sues both the privacy service and the registrant, it is not as if the court says, “Well, gee, I guess we should go ask ICANN if the privacy service should be held liable.”

The practical effect here is simply to favor non-registrar privacy services, since ICANN regulates registrars, but has no regulation tool relative to non-registrar service providers. This is why, for example, Domains By Proxy is a separate entity from GoDaddy. If you are running “Andrew’s Privacy Service”, and are not a registrar, you won’t even receive the advisory in the first place.

There is a recipe here for some real fun and games. There are a lot of things which are unlawful. In Thailand, for example, it is illegal to criticize the king. Yes, there are websites which do criticize the king of Thailand. So that would be very clear evidence of illegal activity which would require disclosure of the privacy service customer. Or is a service provider supposed to pick and choose which laws and which jurisdictions “matter” in some sense?

More fun & games will follow…