Today in the Wall Street Journal, the article “Should Owners of Web Sites Be Anonymous?” raised some interesting questions. Finding out who owns certain web sites makes sense when they need to be shutdown. On the other hand, the Whois information published about web site owners is relatively personal, and can be used for harm.

At the end of day, I am not sure where I am with this one. What I do know is that I get a lot of snail mail spam from internet companies selling this and that. The only way they can possibly know my address is through the Whois service. I also know that I haven’t been asked to shut any of my web sites down. So, as long as we are not doing something illegal or wrong, there is no need for anyone to know who owns anything.

That’s neither here nor there. This is a tough one. We should keep our ears perked on this issue.