Over the years, the ICANN community has expressed interest in and raised questions about domain names registered using a privacy or proxy registration service. In response, ICANN conducted an exploratory study in 2009 to assess an approximate percentage of domain names (through a statistical sampling plan) contained in the top 5 gTLD registries that used privacy or proxy registration services.
The study indicated that at least 18% (and probably not much more than 20%) of the domain names contained in the top 5 gTLD registries used privacy or proxy registration services.
Please see the Privacy Proxy Registration Services Study Report [PDF, 572 KB] for more information.
This information is posted for a forty five day public comment period commencing at 12:00 pm Pacific Daylight Time (19:00 UTC) on 14 September 2010 through 11:59 a.m. Pacific Daylight time (18:59 UTC) on 28 October 2010.
Comments can be submitted to privacy-proxy-study-report@icann.org and viewed at http://forum.icann.org/lists/privacy-proxy-study-report/.