"Due to security reasons, WHOIS will now only return a single search result for the exact term entered into the search bar. If no .CA is added to the search term, the WHOIS tool will automatically append a .CA to the search term and complete the WHOIS look-up."
I think CIRA's approach is wrong. WHOIS is for others to learn who the domain name owner is, plain and simple. Unfortunately when you give a powerful tool like that to people that don't understand the purpose of it, don't understand how the Internet works in the first place, and what its based on, they are trying to change it. For them, any disclosure about the domain name registered and who owns them is a security breach.
Transactions done over the Internet are a large part of the economy nowadays. All these transactions based on trust, and WHOIS is a one of the reasons why we have such developed service industry on the Internet. Basically it states loud and clear to the provider of services: everyone knows your identity if you post something bad online, or if you don't provide the service you promised to the consumer. In other words CIRA fails to understand that information about the domain name owners is contributing to user confidence in the internet and WHOIS is tool for understanding who is the owner of domain name is and who is responsible for the content posted on the website, and services provided. Without WHOIS we would be having a lot more fraud, simply because many unreliable people would knew that nobody will find them. That's why CIRA's WHOIS is not WHOIS at all. I mean they can call it WHOIS, but in reality it is some kind of twisted version of it, it is the same as having only company names in the Yellow Pages, and no phone numbers. If there is no way to find out who owns the domain names, Canadian consumer left unprotected.
