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Like most Hacker News users, I have a bunch of domains. I'd be happy if my personal info wasn't in whois.

• majewsky 8y ago
  As a German who owns domains, I don't really know if who is changes anything. The German Telecommunications Media Act (Telemediengesetz) requires website operators to publish an imprint including snail-mail contact info. I'm not gonna link it here to not push it up in SERPs, but my blog is linked in my profile and the imprint is linked there.
  • Tomte 8y ago
    There is a need for a proxy service, and indeed, they do exist. Just not usable for most people. Such a service enters a contract with the domain owner to forward (or scan and mail, or shred, or whatever) everything (or only non-spam) that is sent there. The law is happy, because that is your address now, and failure to forward is something between you and the service you used; you bear all responsibility wrt the sender. The author of a popular novel writing application offers that for his customers, as many write under a pen name and don‘t want their name to be publically known. Other than that... nothing. You could employ a lawyer, but that would be expensive. You could get one of those „hire a post box“ services, but again, too expensive if not really used for business. Some registrars offer that, but not for .de domains.
    • 394549 8y ago
      > You could get one of those „hire a post box“ services, but again, too expensive if not really used for business. They're not too expensive, at least in the US. I an extra-small size PO box, and it costs the equivalent of $7 a month if rented yearly. Besides domain registrations, I've also used it as my mail forwarding address when moving, to help shake off junk-mail senders.
  • raverbashing 8y ago
    Commercial website operators, no? One thing that "would be funny" would be having the contact information show up only for IPs from Germany
    • tpetry 8y ago
      Badicly any website which is not strictly private: which courts ruled as something like a family photo album, a (personsl) blog is by their definition targeted at a wider audience.
    • ferongr 8y ago
      "Commercial" has a different definition in Germany and really, in much of Europe.
      • phicoh 8y ago
        At least in the Netherlands, I'm not aware of any requirements for 'commercial' web sites. If they exist, they are not enforced. Typically it is mostly the tax office that cares about your commercial activities: if you sell stuff, they may want you to collect VAT. If you have regular income from those activities, you have to pay income tax, etc.
        • pbhjpbhj 8y ago
          They'll be bound by the EU "E-commerce" and "Distance Selling Regulations" directives assuming they've been ratified, they're quite old (well over a decade) so I doubt they're not nationally implemented.
          • phicoh 8y ago
            I'm not an expert, but it seems that this is about actually selling something. In addition, if the item is sold by a private person who is not acting in any professional capacity selling then it doesn't apply. So my naive reading is that having ads is fine, because you are not actually selling something. Having professional information and getting paid is also fine. Having a hobby and occasionally selling something as part of your hobby is fine.
  • naibafo 8y ago
    I think it is at least a slight difference, if it is possible to collect data about many domains in one place, or if you have to visit each and check out the notice in the impressum. Also sitting hacker jeopardy champion, huh? Nice :)
    • deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    • DocTomoe 8y ago
      In reality, though, the problem only gets slightly more different. Addresses are relatively uniform, and easy to Regexp (especially if you do not care for a few false positives). That being said: No, you cannot just hide the address in an image - that would be illegal (the imprint information needs to be "easily parseable").
  • gsich 8y ago
    website != domain
    • majewsky 8y ago
      Sure, but the vast majority of people who purchase domains do so to put up websites.
      • dspillett 8y ago
        Yes, but that piece of German legislation is (IIRC) specifically concerned with websites and not domains so has nothing to do with whois - which I think is the previous poster's point in distinguishing between the two. It does not dictate putting correct (or any) information in whois, nor does putting correct information into whois data satisfy (or otherwise release site owners from) its requirement to include correct contact details on your site if it has any commercial nature.
        • Tomte 8y ago
          It‘s concerned with publishing, because that‘s where it originally comes from, centuries ago. People distributing newspapers, and earlier, flyers and pamphlets needed and still need to name a responsible person. This person sometimes gets called ironically „Sitzredakteur“. „Sitting editor“. Not because he is currently the editor, as in „sitting president“, but because he‘s the one who is going to sit in prison.
  • pimmen 8y ago
    It changes a lot. Content creators want an API to quickly check who owns the domain that violates their copyright and without citing legal reasons to do it. Having it done through snail mail changes the game entirely.
  • pbhjpbhj 8y ago
    There's EU legislation requiring businesses (including sole traders) to publish an "address for service" on their website. It comes from the E-commerce Directive 2000/31/EC IIRC.
• julianwachholz 8y ago
  Some of the registrars I use have announced free-for-life WHOIS protection to appease the GDPR. When I recently checked my domains, none provided real contact information except for my .CH domains (yay Switzerland).
• pas 8y ago
  This is about Admin-Contact and Tech-Contant, not the Owner part of WHOIS.
  • davidgould 8y ago
    It is also about not publishing the owner part of whois. Private persons names will have to be hidden under GDPR.
    • pas 8y ago
      That's not due to the GDPR. The GDPR is about informed consent. Do you want a domain? Yes. Great, now we need your name, and we'll put it into the WHOIS. Do you consent? Yes. Great, here's your domain. No! Okay, then you might try a different TLD, that doesn't require WHOIS publication. The part that the GDPR is very much up to the courts, is that whether WHOIS publication is necessary for the function of the domain. Because if not, then it can be argued that it's an undue burden and it should be a separate thing, so the lack of consent for it must not mean domain registration rejection. However, ICANN thinks differently about the issue.
      • guitarbill 8y ago
        > whether WHOIS publication is necessary for the function of the domain It is not (e.g. see the paid privacy guard services), and the article 29 working party (WP29) has been telling them this since 2003. ICANN has been ignoring it for 15 years. Until now, there was no way to enforce that. And now they reap what they sowed, with registrars stuck in the middle.
• anujsharmax 8y ago
  Use Njalla (https://njal.la https://njal.la) to have privacy from whois services