The latest buzzphrase is "Domain Privacy", and what it means to the ISP is more revenue. That they can charge you a monthly or annual "drag" for uuuuhhh doing nothing! When you register a new domain name with them, they simply won't put your informationin the WHOIS records. Ain't that special?

Now, the rationale is that the evil spammers who automatically search the WHOIS database won't be able to try to sell you stuff at your "owner's" IDs. Wonderful. But it also provides something else - a hiding place for those very spammers, sites with pornography (including child pornography), and other people engaged in web commerce of any questionable nature!

Suddenly, you can't find out who to go after for wasting your time, bandwidth, and email storage space, with drivel about their Wonderful Product that you don't want, but that they advertise incessantly. It's been made more difficult to find certain types of individuals who really need to be found - stalkers, pedophiles, and other criminals.

I think it's time to call a moratorium on "Domain Privacy" offerings, worldwide. If you can't stand to have the light shining on you as the owner of XYZ website, maybe there's a reason that light should be shining!

Oh, I have about 20 domains registered to my name, not "protected" by DP. Nobody spams their associated email addresses any more than any other email address I have. But if someone does, I want to know who to go after!