[INPUT REQUESTED] How do non-commercial Internet users use WHOIS?

[Sam Lanfranco]

If I am not flogging a dead horse here I will share my latest use of WHOIS.

I am on the executive of an African organization dedicated to the 
advancement of science in Africa. (I think I bring "diversity" :-) ). 
Approached by a U.S. family foundation with an offer of support, follow 
up was handed to me (as resident elder geek). WHOIS revealed that the 
domain name was 6 weeks old. From Google and WHOIS the Kenyan group to 
whom we were supposed to "funnel" partial funding knew nothing. It was a 
variant of the classic "accounts receivable" scam. WHOIS listed their 
address as in Brooklyn. When I offered to meet them in Brooklyn there 
email account and website vanished. I suspect that they guessed that 
(thanks to Google maps) I knew that their headquarters where a vacant 
lot in Brooklyn.

Could I have done most of that without WHOIS? Probably, with more time 
and effort, but the domain name WHOIS information was a key ingredient 
in my "trust and verify" inquiry process,. I favor transparency unless 
there is an overwhelming reason for the information to not be there. (Of 
course, I would have had more difficult if they had exercised a privacy 
proxy option).

Sam Lanfranco