If I am not flogging a dead horse here I will share my latest use of WHOIS.
I am on the executive of an African organization dedicated to the
advancement of science in Africa. (I think I bring "diversity" :-) ).
Approached by a U.S. family foundation with an offer of support, follow
up was handed to me (as resident elder geek). WHOIS revealed that the
domain name was 6 weeks old. From Google and WHOIS the Kenyan group to
whom we were supposed to "funnel" partial funding knew nothing. It was a
variant of the classic "accounts receivable" scam. WHOIS listed their
address as in Brooklyn. When I offered to meet them in Brooklyn there
email account and website vanished. I suspect that they guessed that
(thanks to Google maps) I knew that their headquarters where a vacant
lot in Brooklyn.
Could I have done most of that without WHOIS? Probably, with more time
and effort, but the domain name WHOIS information was a key ingredient
in my "trust and verify" inquiry process,. I favor transparency unless
there is an overwhelming reason for the information to not be there. (Of
course, I would have had more difficult if they had exercised a privacy
proxy option).
Sam Lanfranco