But at the same time, I reflect upon the days of the phone book, which most people on this board likely never knew. Your phone number and address would be listed by the phone company as part of your phone number subscription - an unlisted number would cost you more.
While times of change, and the searchability of the digital world does raise some other concerns, I still wonder how big a deal it is for ICANN to require this. Is it really revealing "all of your personal information" if you reveal the PO box, spam-trap "domains@" email address, and phone number of the domain owner?
If the registrar were revealing other info, I'd say "it's pretty absurd." But by default allowing people the info to contact you, as the owner of a domain name? That doesn't seem like extortion. Heck, if you own any real estate in the U.S., your contact info is listed in the tax assessor's database for all to find, same as in the WHOIS database.
Regardless, definitely an interesting topic to chew on.