The Sad Decline and Imminent Fall of WHOIS

A couple of outlets are reporting that the WHOIS database is on the chopping block, over privacy and administrative concerns. (That’s the public database where you can go to see who registered what Web domain, where they live, their hair color, etc.) Which seems like a shame. Sure, WHOIS is where spammers go to gorge themselves on free personal information until their repulsive bellies are round and bloated. But surely there’s a competent way to run those databases so they can’t be crawled for profit? That’s also where journalists go to track down reclusive sources, don’t you know.