Bret Fausett wrote:
Just because a person isn't afraid of being stalked because their own home address isn't in the whois database doesn't mean they would support the ability of stalkers to easily find their friends and neighbors. Most people aren't that self-centric ...and I think a healthy concern for others is a hallmark attribute of CU's members. Most non-techie Internet users (that I'm aware of in my own travels) don't think of domain owners as individuals; when I tell them I own my own domain they consider that a novelty. A check of most registries would probably affirm that individual casual ownership of domains is in the small minority -- especially compared to the massive bulk-domain-procurement activities that were suggested during the workshop on domain tasting. At their most benign, domain owners are providers of useful information and services, at their most severe the source of spam, phishing, squatting, and popup-window hell.
As such, I would suggest that most people -- especially those not in the tech field -- consider Internet domains far more likely the source of stalker than victim. I sincerely doubt that many casual Internet users consider domain owners to be their 'friends and neighbours" -- and, as such, are less concerned with their privacy than of end-users. Individual Internet users know they already have very limited privacy -- even when using pseudomyns in email, they can be traced back through their ISP. Why would one expect that they should naturally support greater anonymity for spammers than for themselves? - Evan