[jedsmith]

I've honestly never understood this mindset, and this isn't the first time I've seen it. I'm willing to learn if someone is willing to explain it to me.

The information is there, but please don't share it visibly. Make people look for it!

It makes shockingly little sense.

[7402]

By posting someone's e-mail address in a very public web site, you are just making it that much more accessible to spammers. It is easier to spider news.ycombinator.com than to do so for many whois repositories, some of which explicitly try to block their records from spammers.

But even more importantly, as a matter of simple politeness, it is a good rule to honor someone's choice about how much they reveal about themselves on-line, even if you possess the technical knowledge to dig deeper.

We're talking about rudeness vs. courtesy here. The world will not be a better place if your algorithm is simply to find out as much as you can about someone and then broadcast it in as public a fashion as possible without regard to the person's wishes.

[IgorPartola]

Do the Whois databases actually try to block spammers? Any idea how they do it? I also wonder if all the websites out there that allow a view into the Whois data, end up caching it (e.g.: http://whois.domaintools.com/mta.me). If then Google and Coral Cache crawl these this data is permanently accessible.

[Travis]

It is very explicitly and obviously against their terms of service if you run a whois from a cli. The first lines returned: "You are not authorized to access or query our Whois database through the use of electronic processes that are high-volume and automated except as reasonably necessary to register domain names or modify existing registrations."

Perhaps you can argue against the effectiveness of their countermeasures, but from an legal standpoint, they do not authorize that activity. I take that to mean that they probably implement some technical countermeasures, but I cannot speak to their level of sophistication.

[Natsu]

> It is very explicitly and obviously against their terms of service if you run a whois from a cli.

You're absolutely right, but I've yet to meet a spammer who cared about anybody's ToS and I know for a fact that they only put that up there after a bunch of spammers abused the heck out of the service.

[Travis]

One practical explanation is that it simply hides the information from "nefarious" elements (e.g., spam bots, etc.) that only have the sophistication to pull low hanging fruit.

Somewhat related: I loaded your profile and then to your linked site[1]. I notice that you don't post your email address anywhere I saw. Is there a reason? I bet it's listed somewhere publicly (and that I could find it if I looked hard enough), but it might feel better to have it somewhat less public.

Privacy issues are tough to compare between people. Each person has a different, often inconsistent, scale. And the metric of choice seems to be how "slimy" something feels.

[1] Also, it may be interesting to note that I actually felt a little uncomfortable even doing that, in order to look for a counterexample to reply to your post with. To me, it felt like it could appear somewhat unnecessary. If it does, I apologize. So it's obvious that my personal scale might be a bit on the touchy side.

edit, formatting

[jedsmith]

Posterous enforces http:// on related links on the left. It wasn't that I wanted to hide my e-mail, but more that I never felt like throwing it over there since it required editing the HTML.

Since you mentioned it, though, I took the opportunity to add it and do the Google Fonts changes I've been itching to try out. Thanks for the impetus.

[tintin]

Maybe it has something to do Bruce Schneier said once: Privacy is not about hiding stuff, but about controlling what others can see about you (I can't find the exact quote).

There is a huge difference between people who are looking for explicit information and people stumbling upon information.

I agree with you that the information is simply there. But I think context is needed for every little bit of information. And maybe posting this on a very public forum like this will loose some context.

Edit: found the article: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/04/privacy_and_co...