Our favorite Internet regulator, ICAN’T ICANN, is close to deciding that the contact info needed in WHOIS is the technical contact. From the WSJ article:

… the Icann committee responsible for Whois voted 18-9 to restrict its listings solely to someone who can resolve technical “configuration” problems. That means a Web-hosting company could be listed without any link to the person who controls what appears on the site. After the committee makes recommendations on other aspects of the Whois rules, the full Icann board is expected to approve the reduced disclosure requirement.

It has been pushed by privacy advocates, but is opposed by ‘major corporations’ and the US Government. This may have significant implications for those of you who do investigations, or even normal users who are trying to determine if they are being phished.

The current options if you’d like your contact info to remain private are to:

1. Dummy it up (officially against ICANN policy, but rarely enforced) or
2. Pay your domain registrar extra to mask your whois information for you (can be as little as $1/domain)

I’m not sure we really need something beyond these two options, although I sure am tired of getting SPAM and telemarketing calls based on my WHOIS.

Sorry, the Wall Street Journal is a pay-subscription only, and Google News says no one else has picked it up yet.

Wall Street Journal: Should Owners of Websites be Anonymous?

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