> One of the big reasons ICANN can't do the sensible thing and just discontinue whois is that it is heavily influenced by the big copyright corporations who pre

> One of the big reasons ICANN can't do the sensible thing and just discontinue whois is that it is heavily influenced by the big copyright corporations who presently can start enforcement against a domain by lookup in whois. Once whois is gone they will have to use legal process to compel registrars to reveal the identity of domain owners. Doesn't WHOIS typically just show the registrar anyway?