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Comment by gruez | Hacker News Reader

I'm divided on this. On one hand, if everyone can use whois privacy, what's the point of whois? On the other, I guess bad guys can always put in fake names or create their own shell companies, so we might as well let everyone have it.

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Well what IS the point of whois? I always thought it was a dumb idea created by someone "just because they could" in the early days of the web, sort of how people used scrolling text and blinking fonts "just because they could"

Oh speaking of Markmonitor I just send their DMCA emails to spam now (they can send me a proper notice via normal DMCA channel as is required if they so care) since every single one is for a dead pages or false notices, hell they even sent one the other day for a domain not in used in 7 years!

WHOIS significantly predates the existence of the web. The notion is if you have a public network resource identifier (IP address, domain name, AS number, etc.) that there be a record of who to contact to report administrative or technical problems to pertaining to that network resource. It is perhaps similar to having a formally registered place of business on record for a company to receive important correspondence.

Obviously the usages of WHOIS have drifted over time to go beyond that.

I think the point of whois is about the same as the point of the yellow pages. Contact information is not supposed to be secret information except when deemed necessary by circumstances.

I could however see a strong argument to remove the email field, as any email address will be abused regardless of whom or what will actually read things sent to it.

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