Comment Re:Leak? (Score 3, Insightful) 42
There are times I actually try to find the owner of a domain, only to find them hidden behind a proxy registration. Some owners have forgotten their info to manage their proxied domains, leaving me unable to trivially verify if the site is still theirs when helping them.
There is a risk involved with having a valid address on file for domain ownership, though. Can't ignore that. I have a private domain and my information is not protected, and I have yet to be antagonized by crazed axe murderers, but it's a risk I'm choosing to take. I can say that other than a snail mail scam letter once or twice a year, all the other email crap gets filtered with the rest of my generic email spam.
If someone wants to commercialize registering domains by proxy... well, that's free enterprise. The proxy owner might find a way to claim the domain is theirs if they want to be jerks later, but contract law might cover those situations, since the actual owner is likely to have documentation indicating the proxy arrangement.
Here's another scenario... if the original owner accidentally allows the domain to expire, can the proxy site choose to register the name itself, and only sell it back to the owner at whatever price they want to ask? The registrar itself (generally) doesn't care, but the domain proxy service now knows the name was valuable enough to someone to pay for protecting it.
Anyway. I'd still prefer to leave it public, but I can understand those that are reluctant to do the same.