The point of GDPR is to implement privacy by default, not privacy for those who know how to pick the right companies and the right options. ICANN have been trying to get an exemption for this, unsuccessfully, for a while. Hence this lawsuit.

> Every major registrar already provides mechanisms for hiding this info from the general public should you choose to do so.

I think you missed a "by charging a fee to not do something they have no reason to otherwise do except to force you to pay a fee" in there.

Seems like charging fees for charging fees sake, when can we get rid of that?

As much as I appreciate the privacy-first aims of the GDPR, I think that at some point it collides head-on with property records.

Privacy and property rights are interconnected: after all, what is privacy but the right to do with yourself and your property as you see fit without outside observation/interference?

These rights are sometimes at odds with each other: can you really own property if your ownership is not publicly recorded/recognized?

Is the balance of your bank account recorded publicly? So it seem there is no need for a public record.

And GDPR does not prohibit voluntary owner entries into a central whois directory, it just prohibits transferring personal data without consent.

Talk to ICANN. It wanted to cut out registrars trying to comply with the law.

OTOH maybe you shouldn't have to pay extra to keep your privacy?