NTIA blocks your ability to add privacy to .US domain names

[Jason]

This is a pretty interesting battle going on around domain privacy.  The basic summary of it is that with most domain extensions out there, you can opt to pay an additional yearly rate to add "privacy" to your domain whois information.  This means that if someone looks up your domain registration info (which anyone can, by the way), they will see "proxy" information instead of your personal details.  There are lots of pros and cons to this practice, but for some people, it's very important.

So oddly enough, the organization that controls the .US tld has made it illegal to allow privacy on .US domains going forward.  Odd that in the land of freedom of privacy that most domains EXCEPT the .US one would be permitted to do this. 

I'm not picking a side at this point, though it is pretty concerning.

For more information...

Bob Parsons, CEO of Godaddy.com, has built a side site with a petition and the ability to email your representatives on it: 
http://protectionfrompredators.com/

He also keeps a public blog and goes into much more detail on the process.  You can read some key articles here if you're interested:

Federal agency nixes your right to privacy! How this harms you.
http://bobparsons.com/index.php?/archives/34-Federal-agency-nixes-your-right-to-privacy!-How-this-harms-you..html

Why Privacy Makes the Internet Safer.
http://bobparsons.com/index.php?/archives/42-Why-privacy-makes-the-Internet-safer.-How-anonymity-hides-the-bad-guys!.html

NTIA "privacy elimination" tricks explained. The document trail.
http://bobparsons.com/index.php?/archives/44-NTIA-privacy-elimination-tricks-explained.-The-document-trail..html

Regards,
Jason