The Whois Records play a very important role in fighting plagiarism. They tell you the contact information of the domain owner and when it’s a private registration, you get the details of the domain registrar.
But this “extremely useful” Whois database is under some serious threat as privacy advocates now say that it should be scrapped completely. Their logic is that one shouldn’t have to reveal personal information simply to have a Web site.
Currently, one has to supply his name, phone numbers, email and postal address to register a web domain and that information is stored with the domain registrar.
The proposal will come up before ICANN tomorrow and if that gets approved, the current Whois requirement could be abolished by late 2008. It may then become extremely tough for content owners to fight plagiarism on the Internet.
ICANN could come up with better ways to protect identities of the web domain owners but scrapping it altogether could lead to loads of other problems.
Related: How to Write a DMCA Notice
Find this article at: http://www.labnol.org/internet/pirates/whois-database-records-for-fighting-plagiarism/1686/
Tags: feature, whois, Internet, Plagiarism
Reader Comments
Something should be done about the privacy. Currently whois displays all of my personal contact information.
There should be a system that is similar to the current DMV license plate system. All of the contact information is available but thru a proper channel. That is just an example.
Identity could be concealed while maintaining accountability.
Written by Sure on 10.31.07
The link seems to be a happy median between the two, show everything or have no whois. Stand whois only displays the name of the registering party and the admin contact. No contact details or even expire date are displayed.
At the link you can go and find out the contact details via a form which has an access quota I believe. It is designed so you can find out the info if necessary, but to reduce the amount of bulk requests.
Written by Leefe on 02.16.08