Domain names are registered with the idea that they will be visited, at least ultimately
and for the most part. By site administration they are either public or protected.
Assuming we're meant to visit the site or they're being used to reach out and contact
us, why shouldn't we know who registered the site? I can think of very few legitimate
reasons where hiding this information benefits anyone but a person trying to escape
from responsibility. Indeed, I'm worried that hiding this information will
make it even more likely for a greater number of sites to be used for illegal and/or
immoral purposes. I would rather see more being done to verify the accuracy
and completeness of registry information than any effort being made to make registration
anonymous. People/organizations should not be protected from having to take
responsibility for their actions or site content. Whether you let an individual
or organization register anonymously or simply impede access to this information,
you're doing the internet a terrible injustice. There are no formal, universal
agreements on proper internet use and certainly no global enforcement of any local,
national or international codes.
When I was spammed last week by purveyor of pornographic
smut, how else could I have tracked down the organization responsible? There
was no e-mail return address displayed, the address my mail reader used for an automatic
reply was invalid. The only way I could discover the e-mail's true origin was
to decode the mail header and reverse-ARP the e-mail link address to its originating
IP address. Even with the mail server and e-mail link address in hand, if I
hadn't had access to domain registration information I would have never known how
to contact the organization. I didn't ask for nor do I want to receive the
kind of garbage they sent and I certainly don't want my children to get it at their
e-mail addresses. There's no guarantee the letter I sent will do any good but,
at least now, I have a chance at holding this organization responsible for its actions.
Some
may say that even with anonymous registration that there could be some organization
that could police and/or monitor registrant sites or information. The very last thing
we need is another bureaucratic organization or process that serves only to further
protect those who don't deserve being protected.