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domain registration data is in a weird place for the modern internet. I can see the value of having a real registry when it was first developed, but now it seem
by kbar13 8y ago
domain registration data is in a weird place for the modern internet. I can see the value of having a real registry when it was first developed, but now it seems like a pretty easy way for people to shoot themselves in the foot with regards to privacy. Also, some registrars charge a premium for WHOIS privacy. It should not cost extra to have your legal name and address to be hidden from the entirety of the internet.
- mort96 8y agoDo any registrars not charge a premium for Whois privacy? I know Hover doesn't have a separate Whois privacy entry price, but the base price at Hover seems to be about the price of a domain + Whois privacy at other registrars.
- BlueGh0st 8y agoGoogle domains offers it for free and as standard.
- asaph 8y agoI wouldn't say free. I would say it's included in the $12/year price of .com registration. I suspect that price is competitive with registrars that have a base price that doesn't include WHOIS privacy and sell privacy as an add-on, though I haven't shopped around in a while. All my domains are registered with Google Domains.
- hamandcheese 8y agoGandi.net doesn't charge extra and also has reasonable prices.
- us0r 8y agoi get it free from moniker
- PatientJ 8y agoiwantmyname.com doesn't charge for whois privacy
- wilg 8y agoIt's included on Hover as well.
- mort96 8y agoThat's what I meant with "I know Hover doesn't have a separate Whois privacy entry price, but the base price at Hover seems to be about the price of a domain + Whois privacy at other registrars".
- bks 8y agoI shifted my entire domain portfolio from Bulkregister.com to Uniregistry for this issue. Bulk charges $3 per domain per year and I saved thousands a year moving to Uniregisry.
- lazycouchpotato 8y agoNameSilo doesn't - but they were also recently acquired so there's no guarantee if the new owners will let things be the same or change it.
- jacekm 8y agoI have some domains in OVH, they do not charge for privacy. Generally you can check out https://tld-list.com/tld/com https://tld-list.com/tld/com for the list of providers which offer free whois privacy for a given domain.
- dx034 8y agoBe careful with OVH, they put your details in Admin-C/Tech-C, same effect as not using their service at all. At least that was my experience a few months back, I then switched to namecheap to avoid that.
- grouseway 8y agoI just enter phone/address information for one of those whois privacy proxies without bothering to pay for them. What's the point of paying? The only thing real on my domain registrations is a gmail contact - the rest doesn't matter.
- BuildTheRobots 8y agoBack a few years ago, NomiNet used to post you a certificate proving ownership every time you registered a .co.uk domain. I recently found a couple when moving house.
- freeone3000 8y agoYou could just lie. Only the contact email really matters, and those are anonymously-routable already.
- jkaplowitz 8y agoIn practice, this will usually work, but it does violate ICANN rules. If this ever gets enforced, likely due to a disgruntled party making a complaint, it could backfire.
- jzl 8y agoYep, you could lose the domain. It would be a big risk to take if there's any chance someone wanted to go after the domain.
- brewtide 8y agonamesilo
- Cyphase 8y agoDreamHost doesn't charge for WHOIS privacy, and they have competitive domain prices.
- Audible_logic 8y agoI would 2nd Gandi.net. No additional fee for their who is privacy option.
- cm2187 8y agoAnd some jokers like OVH do not charge anything for privacy but fuck it up. I got recently hundreds of emails and a dozen phone calls from various spammers as a result of registering some domain names with them despite chosing the privacy options. The publication of personal information on whois cannot stop soon enough.
- dx034 8y agoYep, they only replace owner but not contact details for admin or tech. That way your details are as public as without their "service".
- jdietrich 8y agoWHOIS privacy isn't even an option for some tlds. Nominet require the registrant's legal name and postal address and only offer a discretionary opt-out for non-commercial websites. https://registrars.nominet.uk/namespace/uk/management/data-quality/whois-opt-out https://registrars.nominet.uk/namespace/uk/management/data-q...
- jedberg 8y agoWhen you buy a house, your name and the purchase price are public information. Any one at any time can look up who owns a house, how much they paid for it, and how much they pay in property tax every year. I get a ton of spam because of this. However, I'd rather have this system than one in which all the owners are secret. I've had to look up owner information before to contact owners of various properties, and having that hidden would have made that task impossible. You can hide the ownership information of a house, if you pay extra money, by hiring a lawyer to create an entity and put the entity on the property, but then the lawyer has to put their address, and forward any requests on to you, just like the whois privacy folks. I think it is a good thing that every domain has valid contact info.
- dictum 8y ago> However, I'd rather have this system than one in which all the owners are secret. I don't mean to be cynical, but isn't this system also the one in which some people simply register their houses under a shell company?
- jedberg 8y agoYes, but at least the shell company forwards on the messages. And most people don't do it because it's a hassle.
- woolvalley 8y agoAnd you lose a 250-500k capital gains exemption if you sell the house and it's not owned & lived in by you directly AFAIK The issue with this system is it also lets people look up where you live by name alone, which can be bad if you want to own your house and have a stalker problem. The map works 2 ways.
- toomuchtodo 8y agoNot true with a revocable trust, which costs under $1000 to establish and provides all the same benefits of owning the real estate directly without disclosing ownership. Disclaimer: Applies primarily to IL and FL, not an attorney, nor your attorney.