Sean Spicer and WHOIS

ARS Technica reports on Trump minister of propaganda (I think that's his title) Sean Spicer and how he registered a handful of domains a few years ago with his still-current contact information, including his still-current phone number.

I'm a big fan of WHOIS transparency overall, and I'm not a fan of obscuring ownership information, because I know that bad guys abuse "privacy proxy" services to make finding them harder. But to be fair, I'm more than willing to share this story that comes at it from an alternate point of view, showing that Mr. Spicer's phone number is easily obtained and implies that perhaps people are using this information to harass him as a result. I think. The article is unclear on that point.

Nonetheless, the guy is a public figure. Heck, Trump's personal cell phone number is widely known, and has been for years. Google it, if you don't believe me. I don't know if the concern of harassment of a public figure is a reasonable defense as to why we should allow hiding who owns a domain name. I don't think it's enough of a reason from where I sit.

If it was me, I would have gotten a separate phone number just for the registrations. Or just use a Google Voice number that I can generally leave on, but turn off when I need to, or use to block certain numbers. (I actually do this and have done this for years. It's very handy.)