[elahd]

.NYC requires that the owner have a physical presence in New York City. In addition to the standard whois owner/tech/billing/etc contact sections, .NYC requires a "Nexus" contact -- basically, a NYC-based address of either a person or business affiliated with the domain.

See http://www.ownit.nyc/faq, under "WILL PROXY REGISTRATIONS, SOMETIMES CALLED “DOMAIN PRIVACY” BE ALLOWED ON MY .NYC DOMAIN NAME?"

Basically, it's the registrar's policy to prohibit obfuscating the actual domain owner. Resellers like Namecheap have to abide by these policies.

I can't speak for EU domains, or for the reasoning behind the .NYC policy.