A large group of NGOs, lead by EPIC, has sent a letter to ICANN that emphasizes the need for moving forward on WHOIS privacy.
The letter suggests a number of useful and important principles for dealing with WHOIS. The most critical one: The purposes for which domain name holders' personal data may be collected and published in the WHOIS database have to be specified; they should, as a minimum, be legitimate and compatible to the original purpose for which this database was created; and this original purpose cannot be extended to other purposes simply because they are considered desirable by some users of the WHOIS database.
It's somewhat unfortunate that the authors of this letter have given in to the very temptation they warn about: In the next bullet point, they suggest that combatting spam should be the most relevant purpose for collecting WHOIS data.
