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Story: Google blocked from asking Whois

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I suspect that Verisign is more interested in keeping their customer's names private than those customers are.

Whois data has been often used to get the names of existing registrants in order to offer them the same kinds of services that Network Solutions offers at a much lower price.

Privacy is important and is easily solved with proxy services. The registrars are using the issue of customer privacy as a front in their battle to keep customers.

The free and open availability of whois data is important in order for ISPs and other's to find the source of fraud and many other problems. What Google was doing was a good thing that Verisign is blocking for their own reasons, not for their customers. It's a little too obvious and a bit sickening to see the parade of registrars that are using "privacy" as the reason for wanting to keep their whois databases hidden or inaccessible.

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