

Ask HN: Do you think the whois rules need to be modified? - vaksel

I don't see the point anymore to require domain owners to provide address/phone#, not with all those domainbyproxy type services out there.<p>Leave to just email and be done with it.
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pantsd
I think the solution is to not allow the domainbyproxy services anymore [like
some cctlds have done]. Having valid whois contact information (especially
abuse) is can be very useful. e-mail often isn't always sufficient.

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aj
I agree with you. There are numerous cases when a domain is abused and nothing
can be done.

Consider the case that the domain owner has leased out the domain to a 3rd
party who are willfully abusing the domain? Without the contact info, it will
be much more difficult to get it sorted out

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TomOfTTB
I don't necessarily disagree with you in theory but in actual practice I don't
think what you are proposing is worth it.

The way I see it people who aren't causing trouble should have the right to
stay anonymous on the net if they so desire. There are tons of reasons for
this but the most obvious one is so people on the net can't seek retribution
against you for something you say online.

Now I can see your perspective which seems to be that we should limit privacy
because of those who abuse it and do cause trouble. But even if you do that at
the Whois level these people can still create a dummy corporation or llc and
stay anonymous. Which, to my eyes, means we really can't eliminate anonymous
troublemakers.

So being we can't eliminate anonymous troublemakers I don't think there's any
point in limiting the privacy of people who aren't troublemakers and who just
want their privacy.

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aj
Oh I agree. There SHOULD be privacy controls.

I was only disagreeing with the OP that all contact information should be "not
required" at all.

My take is: Yes, collect the contact information (and as much as feasible,
ensure it is valid) but also provide options to make it private to an extent
(perhaps have at least one public email (protected from spam bots obviously)
while making the rest of the info private and available only through a court
order etc)

As you can see, I also have extreme parentheses usage syndrome ;)

