I wonder if it's time to stop requiring address and phone number information in the WHOIS information. Unless registrars are required to verify it with a confirmation letter and phone call, there isn't much guarantee that the information will be accurate anyway.

The Internet isn't the nice place that it used to be, and I literally have never gotten anything but spam snail mail letters for my domains.

Perhaps we could even drop the email, and suggest that every domain monitor the abuse@ domain in order to receive DMCA requests, etc. If the abuse account isn't monitored, DMCA requests can be sent to the owner of the IP address block, which seems to be a popular approach anyway.

(For those who have never tried it, try doing a WHOIS on an IP address to get the WHOIS records for several layers of IP block ownership. This is a use case where contact information makes a lot more sense, as these blocks are going to be owned by businesses where there'd be no point to guarding privacy.)