[dns-operations] [Ext] Re: Denying Whois DB by GeoIP

[Paul Vixie]

On Monday, June 12, 2017 5:36:42 AM GMT Doug Barton wrote:
> On 06/11/2017 03:36 PM, Leo Vegoda wrote:
> > Doug Barton wrote:
> >> You might also consider the decades of research that has
> >> gone into demonstrating that spammers don't bother
> >> harvesting e-mail address from whois data.
> > 
> > ...
> > 
> > https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/sac-023-2012-02-25-en
> > 
> > Maybe things have changed since 2007. But I doubt it.
> 
> You don't think things have changed in 10 years? On the Internet?

gentlemen, none of this matters. accurate whois including reachable e-mail 
addresses is a duty of care that every registrant owes to the eco-system they 
are benefiting from. it doesn't matter if you'll get a lot of spam, or a 
little. what matters is that you read it all, and process your complaints. i 
say "your complaints" because they are yours and they are complaints -- uses 
of your internet identifiers that give more benefit to communication senders 
than to receivers.

in other words the spam you enable outweighs the spam you receive. if you 
don't like the spam you receive, report it, carefully and every single time, 
to abusix and/or spamhaus and/or the other teams who can work it back to their 
senders and enablers. but meanwhile, be ready to receive complaints and 
reports of enablement or transmission by you via your internet identifiers.

the entire argument about whether accurate whois leads to more spam is 
misplaced.

vixie