[Cialug] ICANN Has Cheezburger

[Todd Walton]

I registered a new domain name a month ago, and today I got this:

==============================
As of January 1, 2014, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and
Numbers (ICANN) has mandated that all ICANN accredited registrars begin
verifying the WHOIS contact information for all new domain registrations
and Registrant contact modifications.

The following change has been made to the Registrant contact information
for one or more of your domains and requires verification:

  Name Todd Walton
  Address 1 <my address>
  Address 2
  City DES MOINES
  State Province IA
  Postal Code 50314
  Country US
  Email Address <my email>

Please click the link below to verify the Registrant email address.  You
have 5 days remaining to verify the Registrant contact information to avoid
the domain(s) from being suspended.
==============================

And apparently it's for real:
https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/approved-with-specs-2013-09-17-en#whois-accuracy

I'm not sure I see the value (except to spammers) of publicly displaying
the contact info of a registrant, but I guess I'm not a supreme Internet
overlordulous wizardly type.

--
Todd