no whois info ?

Sun Dec 12 11:36:25 UTC 2004

william(at)elan.net wrote:

> It matters if we're talking about Tom, John or Susan working for some 
> commercial company and contacting me as part of the activity of that
> entity, in that case I'd like to know about the domain and don't want
> to see its whois data hidden. 

I find it somewhat amusing that the whois record for elan.net refers to 
a hostmaster role account and a P.O. Box.  ;-)

I do agree that a "one size fits all" rule rarely fits all situations. 
Do I support anonymous registrations for non-commercial sites as long as 
they can still be contacted?  Yes.  Do I support them for large 
corporations?  Not necessarily.  Do I support the right of end users to 
filter their mail any way they choose?  Sure.  Do I support the right of 
a provider to filter their user's mail any way they choose?  Not 
necessarily.

Unfortunately, there isn't a perfect way to tell if a site is commercial 
or not by it's domain name.  To me, a false positive is worse than spam 
getting through.  I realize other people have other opinions.  I just 
don't want to see wide spread filtering of mail from anonymous (ala 
domainsbyproxy) whois records.  I feel it damages an important part of 
the internet with little long term benefit.