I received a couple of spam snail mails today from "Domain Registry of America" Melbourne, Australia, offering me the opportunity to renew a couple of my .com names with them at an extremely generous AUS$48 per year, and also to buy the equivalent names in .biz and .info. Obviously they're "yet another" pack of spammers who have trolled the .com whois and are seeking to make a buck out of it. But the interesting point is that when I do a whois on their domain, I get a message as follows: "Status: PROTECTED Note: To help prevent malicious domain hijacking and domain transfer errors, the registrar has protected the registrant of this domain name registrant by locking it. Any attempted transfers will be denied at the registry until the registrant requests otherwise. The registrant for the name may unlock the name at any time at the current registrar in order for a transfer initiation to succeed The data in this whois database is provided to you for information purposes only, that is, to assist you in obtaining information about or related to a domain name registration record. We make this information available "as is," and do not guarantee its accuracy. By submitting a whois query, you agree that you will use this data only for lawful purposes and that, under no circumstances will you use this data to: (1) enable high volume, automated, electronic processes that stress or load this whois database system providing you this information; or (2) allow, enable, or otherwise support the transmission of mass unsolicited, commercial advertising or solicitations via direct mail, electronic mail, or by telephone. The compilation, repackaging, dissemination or other use of this data is expressly prohibited without prior written consent from us. The registrar of record is . We reserve the right to modify these terms at any time. By submitting this query, you agree to abide by these terms." Isn't it somewhat ironic that these spammers seek to hide behind a veil of confidentiality, while freely using my information against me?? What, if anything, should ICANN be doing to stop these spammers? Keith Davidson