[cira.ca...]
For individual domain holders, private information will be protected by default. Corporate information will displayed by default, but information may be protected in special circumstances.
Concern has been expressed that the changes will make it very difficult to deal with domain squatters. Will there be any other way for legitimate trademark holders to deal with squatters besides going through the full CIRA dispute resolution process (which isn't cheap)?
[thestar.com...]
Overall, I'm a supporter of the new whois policy, which is long overdue and offers much better protection to private individuals who were required to publicly give out their full address and telephone number for .ca registrations. Domains held by corporations will continue to have their details available via whois.
There will be a communication channel via the CIRA website for contacting domain name registrants whose detailed are not public, and the fact that the names are not published via whois doesn't remove the responsibility from private individuals who are domain-holders.
What is unclear at present is whether CIRA will disclose domain-holder details outside of the dispute resolution process, but I can't see how they could ignore a court order.
I don't think CIRA had a choice though. Seems like the privacy laws in Canada are ultra restrictive. I'd probably get some puzzled looks if I started publishing my client list to the web :) which is in effect what they are doing.
