There is a recurring theme in discussions here that WHOIS data/accuracy
is a matter of privacy; that somehow the technical need is imaginary, or
obsolete because most registrants don't actually operate DNS servers. 
The fact is that someone operates the servers, and the technical contact
needs to reflect that.

Here is a recent (today) example of a (frustrated) senior engineer
attempting to get malfunctioning DNS server operators to address issues
that are causing considerable grief.

> I just logged fault reports with the technical contact for every
> tld that has a server that responds incorrectly to EDNS(1) queries
> if they handle EDNS(0) queries. BADVERS should be the result if
> they the support EDNS as EDNS(1) is not yet defined.
>
> 	dig +edns=1 zone @host
>
> I've had one contact acknowledge the report and say they have logged
> a report upstream.  This doesn't mean that the others won't be acted
> on.
>
> If we had consistent whois formats I would do the same for the Alexa top 1M.
> For the tld's I only had to deal with one whois output.
>
> The next round will be for those that don't correctly handle unknown
> EDNS options.  Unknown options should be ignored.  

Although I'm on record as believing that privacy needs to be protected
(and I hate the SPAM that comes to addresses that are ONLY used in my
WhoIS data), and that privacy proxies are fine; I'm also on record that
whois contacts need to be responsive - whether directly or thru proxies.

Note that in this example, only one **TLD** responded in a timely
fashion; whois is in such sad shape that the engineer didn't even try to
contact the next million domains... Which also gives you some idea of
the scale of technical issues these daze.

(EDNS queries are queries that include OPT records, which provide DNS
extensions; at the moment, most notably allowing message sizes greater
than 512 Bytes, extended flags and response codes.  These are essential
for DNSSEC deployment.  There are active proposals for other uses.)

I'm not discounting the need for accurate and timely administrative and
registrant contact information - I just thought I'd share a current,
live example.

-- 
Timothe Litt
ACM Distinguished Engineer
--------------------------
This communication may not represent the ACM or my employer's views,
if any, on the matters discussed.