Ask HN: Do you think the whois rules need to be modified?
I don't see the point anymore to require domain owners to provide address/phone#, not with all those domainbyproxy type services out there.
Leave to just email and be done with it.
Leave to just email and be done with it.
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
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.
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 ;)