The Death of Whois Database?

[rudyhernandez]

October 29, 2007

WHAT IT IS: A group of searchable databases that list full names, organizations, postal and e-mail addresses and phone numbers for owners of domain names ending in ".com" and other major suffixes.

WHY THE FUSS: Privacy advocates believe individuals should be able to own domain names without revealing personal information that could lead to spam, harassment or loss of anonymity. Trademark lawyers, law-enforcement officials and other Whois supporters believe access is necessary to fight sites that engage in piracy and fraud.

WHAT'S NEXT: A panel on Wednesday (10/31/07) is to consider options that include abolishing the system or conducting additional studies.

More at:
Associated Press
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/storie...VACY?SITE=OKTUL&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Stay Informed.
Rudy
Logistik Labs


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[Domagon]

...Imagine you live in NewYork or somewhere, You own a 300 000$ domain and you forget to renew your whois protection. If the information gets in the wrong person's hands they can try to extort money from you...

Or more likely, in your hypothetical ... if the privacy is expiring the domain itself probably is too! ...

With privacy, well, hope their email works and/or they check on the domain occasionally ... because otherwise there's a real risk of the domain expiring and getting snapped by someone else without them even knowing until it's too late.

Without privacy, it's very likely people will contact the registrant about their domain ... and depending on the nature of those inquiries, the owner may realize their domain is expiring / expired and needs to take immediate action.

I've never heard of anyone being extorted for their "valuable" domains - not saying it doesn't happen, but never come across that...

However, I know of numerous instances in which registrants who used whois privacy LOST their domains - and not just a few folks and there, but large groups of registrants, such as what happened with those who used "whois privacy" at Registryfly.

Anyways, if someone is going to extort someone, surely they could more easily do a little research on-line to see what their house / commercial property is worth - that's public record (directly as a price paid and/or inferred from the assigned tax assessment) in most places in the U.S. and many other countries.

Whois is here to stay, period - end of story.

If anything, whois for .com / .net will likely soon become more centralized - making all whois data more easily available to others.

Ron

 

[pokainc]

ok it was just an example. You can have a domain worth 10 000$ and the same thing.


It didn't happen to me but I can see how having all your info out for anybody to see cause problems. I've heard of such cases.


Bottom line how would you like if someone wants a domain from you and you don't want to sell it. They start calling and harassing you.

AND LIKE I POSTED EARLIER, I DID NOT SAY BAN ALL INFO. BUT MAKE SOME MANDATORY. WHY IN THE WORLD DO YOU NEED TO KNOW WHERE THE PERSON LIVES TO MAKE AN OFFER OR WTV.

 

[Jasonn]

I can't see it ever happening. If you don't want your info to show up pay an extra 2 bucks or so for whois privacy.

 

[Dave_Z]

Whois is here to stay, period - end of story.

Yup. And the IP constituency that's consistently bugged ICANN will make sure
of that.

 

[MadAboutDomains]

I would stop big companies bullying people in to giving their domains up by going straight in to the public whois information.

 

[rudyhernandez]

Newest article from the Associated Press indicates additional studies will be done before the fate of Whois is decided.
Looks like the Whois Database lives another day.


Related Article:
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hCiHLmZiymo5BhARlugPCaGcTsUQD8SKG1TG2

Stay informed.
Rudy

 

[Domagon]

Translation: ICANN decided long ago that whois is here to stay! End of story. :bah:

Ron

 

[c4smok]

Domain Tools goes a bit far giving a listing of all domains one person owns..

would like them to atleast setup some rules and regs for whois data access =X

 

[Dave_Z]

B O H I C A

 

[cherly14]

:sold: i have no comment

 

[Ross]

Name.com offers FREE private whois protection. Also if you dont want people to see your physical address go get a P.O. box. I agree that it suck that your personal info is displayed to everyone but there are a ton of ways to protect yourself. Get an email just for your domains. There are legal ways around it.

 

[NameCaster]

Are we forgetting that this is the world network?
Its just not the Internet. Abolishing the WHOIS just takes more accountability out of the internet. It's really the only accountability we have at the moment. Abolishing WHOIS just adds to the governments arguments that the internet needs to be regulated. Its not a privacy issue people. If your going to own a domain you should be accountable for what that domain represents. If you have to hide behind something your obviously abusing the world network (Internet)
Imagine what this kind of move will do for spammers and other exploiters of our world network.
We need to be the police. We are the police at present and the more of us net admins that have access and the right to know who or what domain is doing what the better off we are.
Are you willing to hand over your rights to the abusers or the government?
God Speed!
-NameCaster