I use whois privacy somewhat, if it’s free. But in generally it’s something I’d like to see go away. Sure it protects us a little from things like SPAM, but more often it lets people make it more difficult to go after spammers or others that are up to no good.

One thing that I REALLY dislike about this kind of story is that I doubt that Ping tried to contact Pingify to start with and have a conversation. Oh, that’s right, they had whois privacy. Well there is normally still an email address that should work for the domain owner. Too often people don’t talk to domain owners and let the lawyers come out with all guns blazing. Yeah, that might work on small players like me, but a professional discussion would also work better than many realize and cost a lot less time, money, and take less of a toll in stress. I HATE getting those registered emails that I have to sign for. My advice, talk softly and carry a large legal budget.