6 ms·

> If they DIDN'T do this, they would then be responsible for policing EVERY site they provide WhoisGuard for, and that would be ridiculous. Why would that be r

> If they DIDN'T do this, they would then be responsible for policing EVERY site they provide WhoisGuard for, and that would be ridiculous. Why would that be ridiculous? If they can't make sure that their clients are legit, they shouldn't be in the business at all. In fact domain name ownership shouldn't be private at all (in the same way that land ownership isn't private)

FpUser 7y ago
"If they can't make sure that their clients are legit, they shouldn't be in the business at all" Really? Then why do we have courts, prosecutors, police and a whole shebang of associated entities. It is their job and they're being paid for it.
randallsquared 7y ago
> If they can't make sure that their clients are legit, they shouldn't be in the business at all. Banks are required to have Know Your Customer systems. Domain registrars, hardware stores, and grocery stores are not. Do you really want to extend this additional expense to all the businesses from which you buy?
- markdown 7y ago
  > Do you really want to extend this additional expense to all the businesses from which you buy? No idea where you got hardware stores, grocery stores, and "all the business from which you buy" from. Read my comment again. Domain name ownership should be public information, just like land ownership, and the ownership of media organisations.
  - drdaeman 7y ago
    > Domain name ownership should be public information Why?
    - markdown 7y ago
      Ownership of land, legal entities, and domain names should be public information because that would be better for society. EDIT (HN won't let me reply or post any more): > Maybe they're exposing corruption or sharing information that powerful people don't want to have exposed. Sure there are edge-cases where anonymity would be desirable, but they pale in comparison to the real harm done every day to regular people through anonymously registered domain names.
      - hartleybrody 7y ago
        > because that would be better for society. Citation Needed. I can think of many legitimate reason that a site owner might want to be anonymous. Maybe they're exposing corruption or sharing information that powerful people don't want to have exposed.
        thanatropism 7y ago
        Maybe they have weird sex fetishes or are flat earthers etc. One has the right to be weird in certain contexts (swing clubs, flat earth rallies) and still have a public persona that’s professionally, politically etc valuable.
        marcus_holmes 7y ago
        can't we ever separate these reasons? I totally agree that in some cases anonymity is good, useful, etc. But creating phishing sites for Facebook is not that. There is no good reason to register the domain "facebo0k-login.com" I get that it's difficult to work out if the domain is going to be used for a legit purpose, but surely that's easier to do at the point of registration than it is to police afterwards? It takes a human about 2s to work out that "fuck-facebook.com" is a legit protest domain, while "facebo0k-support.com" is a phishing domain. It's not even about trademarks or ownership of the word "facebook", it's about the intent of the domain. I think insisting on ownership information for a domain that looks like it could be used for phishing, while allowing "furries-r-us.com" to be anonymous would be a better system than we have now.
  - glofish 7y ago
    land ownership is no different than whoisguard. It is possible to own land via a company or other designated agents.
    - jabits 7y ago
      In the US you can find the legal owner(s) of any land parcel in any county in any state. Companies can be legal property owners of course...
      - unionpivo 7y ago
        And you can have more or less anonymous companies in US. So ...
        TedDoesntTalk 7y ago
        Obviously you’ve never registered a company in any state in the US.
        nulbyte 7y ago
        Companies aren't anonymous in the US. Corporations must have registered agents in each state in which the corporation is registered, the name and address of whom is public in order to facilitate service of process. LLCs in most states must include at least one member, manager, organizer, or authorized individual in the public filing, and even in states that don't require this, a bank will want it in the public paperwork before opening an account in the LLC's name.
        amdavidson 7y ago
        A company must have a registered agent; that registered agent may not be the beneficial owner of the company and could be someone's attorney.
- Barrin92 7y ago
  I personally would want it see extended in areas where fraud is common. I don't think grocery store fraud is very common, misleading domain names however are exceedingly common and a huge problem so I don't really see what the issue is with extending those expenses. Mind you someone always has to pay these expenses when fraud occurs, they don't vanish and I would like to see it allocated in such a way that it gives an incentive to prevent fraud, not protecting it.
  - AnthonyMouse 7y ago
    KYC laws in banking, to the extent that they even do anything anymore, were always for investigations of organized crime. They only work for large, high value targets. They discover that the mortgage on a mob restaurant is getting paid by some "Tony Johnson" so they freeze the account and see if "Tony Johnson" shows up to complain. If there is no such person or it's a stolen identity, you lose all the money in your account because there is nobody to show up and claim it. If there is such a person, now they're building a racketeering case and have somebody they can try to flip. It was never really useful for fraud. The same thing in most other contexts is useless. There is no equivalent to "money in the account" to worry about losing so people will just use made up names or stolen identities with impunity, and the legal process for proving it's a stolen identity wouldn't reasonably be any easier than the existing legal process for having the domain seized whether or not you know who registered it. Also, arbitrary foreign nationals can have domains. What do you even expect to do with the information that the domain was registered by Sergei from ScrewYouistan which has no extradition treaty?
  - rhizome 7y ago
    >I personally would want it see extended in areas where fraud is common Cool, how do you see it working on eBay?
  - eru 7y ago
    Lots and lots of frauds are committed via the mail and telephone or email. Does your argument for KYC apply there?
- YawningAngel 7y ago
  By design, contact information is registered along with domains. One function of this is to allow people to report abuse of that domain to a webmaster, and ultimately to pursue action against the registrant if abuse continues. By allowing people to frustrate this resolution process Namecheap are serialising the abuse process through themselves, as they are now the only party with that formerly public information. So yes, I do think it would be appropriate in this case to extend the expense of policing domain abuse to Namecheap and other registrars who provide WHOIS privacy
- belorn 7y ago
  Most registries have requirements that domain registrars must know their customers identity. Such requirements are not always enforced, especially by ICANN, and the punishment for failure is pretty rare. That could however change at any moment, and the consequences (beyond possible legal ones) would be that the registrar would loose accreditation.
exclusiv 7y ago
> (in the same way that land ownership isn't private) You can make land ownership private by holding it in certain entities. I personally don't think land ownership should be public anyway. Nor do I think home ownership should be public.
- markdown 7y ago
  Maybe in your country, where corporations make the laws. In most of the world, the ownership of "entities" is also public data. The privilege of being an entity is bestowed by the public through the state, and any status or license granted by the the collective (the state) is and ought to be public information.
  - michaelt 7y ago
    What happens in your country if a foreign company wants to buy some land?
    - chx 7y ago
      Depends. Some countries ban homes, some agricultural land but other forms investment might be available.
  - exclusiv 7y ago
    That seems like an attempted insult on the US but your comment is dishonest. There are a lot of layers to laws (Constitution, Congress, state's rights and their laws, local laws, etc). What country are you from? I'd be interested to read up on any country that doesn't have corporate lobbyists or special interests involved in lawmaking. Anyway for future reference, unless specified, most readers are going to assume you are referring the US.
  - eru 7y ago
    > In most of the world, the ownership of "entities" is also public data. The privilege of being an entity is bestowed by the public through the state, and any status or license granted by the the collective (the state) is and ought to be public information. Under that theory, bestowing the privilege of privacy doesn't seem any difference to bestowing the privilege of being an entity. So why should we do one but not the other? What are the trade-offs?

FpUser 7y ago

"If they can't make sure that their clients are legit, they shouldn't be in the business at all" Really? Then why do we have courts, prosecutors, police and a whole shebang of associated entities. It is their job and they're being paid for it.

randallsquared 7y ago

> If they can't make sure that their clients are legit, they shouldn't be in the business at all. Banks are required to have Know Your Customer systems. Domain registrars, hardware stores, and grocery stores are not. Do you really want to extend this additional expense to all the businesses from which you buy?

markdown 7y ago
> Do you really want to extend this additional expense to all the businesses from which you buy? No idea where you got hardware stores, grocery stores, and "all the business from which you buy" from. Read my comment again. Domain name ownership should be public information, just like land ownership, and the ownership of media organisations.
- drdaeman 7y ago
  > Domain name ownership should be public information Why?
  - markdown 7y ago
    Ownership of land, legal entities, and domain names should be public information because that would be better for society. EDIT (HN won't let me reply or post any more): > Maybe they're exposing corruption or sharing information that powerful people don't want to have exposed. Sure there are edge-cases where anonymity would be desirable, but they pale in comparison to the real harm done every day to regular people through anonymously registered domain names.
    - hartleybrody 7y ago
      > because that would be better for society. Citation Needed. I can think of many legitimate reason that a site owner might want to be anonymous. Maybe they're exposing corruption or sharing information that powerful people don't want to have exposed.
      - thanatropism 7y ago
        Maybe they have weird sex fetishes or are flat earthers etc. One has the right to be weird in certain contexts (swing clubs, flat earth rallies) and still have a public persona that’s professionally, politically etc valuable.
        marcus_holmes 7y ago
        can't we ever separate these reasons? I totally agree that in some cases anonymity is good, useful, etc. But creating phishing sites for Facebook is not that. There is no good reason to register the domain "facebo0k-login.com" I get that it's difficult to work out if the domain is going to be used for a legit purpose, but surely that's easier to do at the point of registration than it is to police afterwards? It takes a human about 2s to work out that "fuck-facebook.com" is a legit protest domain, while "facebo0k-support.com" is a phishing domain. It's not even about trademarks or ownership of the word "facebook", it's about the intent of the domain. I think insisting on ownership information for a domain that looks like it could be used for phishing, while allowing "furries-r-us.com" to be anonymous would be a better system than we have now.
- glofish 7y ago
  land ownership is no different than whoisguard. It is possible to own land via a company or other designated agents.
  - jabits 7y ago
    In the US you can find the legal owner(s) of any land parcel in any county in any state. Companies can be legal property owners of course...
    - unionpivo 7y ago
      And you can have more or less anonymous companies in US. So ...
      - TedDoesntTalk 7y ago
        Obviously you’ve never registered a company in any state in the US.
      - nulbyte 7y ago
        Companies aren't anonymous in the US. Corporations must have registered agents in each state in which the corporation is registered, the name and address of whom is public in order to facilitate service of process. LLCs in most states must include at least one member, manager, organizer, or authorized individual in the public filing, and even in states that don't require this, a bank will want it in the public paperwork before opening an account in the LLC's name.
        amdavidson 7y ago
        A company must have a registered agent; that registered agent may not be the beneficial owner of the company and could be someone's attorney.
Barrin92 7y ago
I personally would want it see extended in areas where fraud is common. I don't think grocery store fraud is very common, misleading domain names however are exceedingly common and a huge problem so I don't really see what the issue is with extending those expenses. Mind you someone always has to pay these expenses when fraud occurs, they don't vanish and I would like to see it allocated in such a way that it gives an incentive to prevent fraud, not protecting it.
- AnthonyMouse 7y ago
  KYC laws in banking, to the extent that they even do anything anymore, were always for investigations of organized crime. They only work for large, high value targets. They discover that the mortgage on a mob restaurant is getting paid by some "Tony Johnson" so they freeze the account and see if "Tony Johnson" shows up to complain. If there is no such person or it's a stolen identity, you lose all the money in your account because there is nobody to show up and claim it. If there is such a person, now they're building a racketeering case and have somebody they can try to flip. It was never really useful for fraud. The same thing in most other contexts is useless. There is no equivalent to "money in the account" to worry about losing so people will just use made up names or stolen identities with impunity, and the legal process for proving it's a stolen identity wouldn't reasonably be any easier than the existing legal process for having the domain seized whether or not you know who registered it. Also, arbitrary foreign nationals can have domains. What do you even expect to do with the information that the domain was registered by Sergei from ScrewYouistan which has no extradition treaty?
- rhizome 7y ago
  >I personally would want it see extended in areas where fraud is common Cool, how do you see it working on eBay?
- eru 7y ago
  Lots and lots of frauds are committed via the mail and telephone or email. Does your argument for KYC apply there?
YawningAngel 7y ago
By design, contact information is registered along with domains. One function of this is to allow people to report abuse of that domain to a webmaster, and ultimately to pursue action against the registrant if abuse continues. By allowing people to frustrate this resolution process Namecheap are serialising the abuse process through themselves, as they are now the only party with that formerly public information. So yes, I do think it would be appropriate in this case to extend the expense of policing domain abuse to Namecheap and other registrars who provide WHOIS privacy
belorn 7y ago
Most registries have requirements that domain registrars must know their customers identity. Such requirements are not always enforced, especially by ICANN, and the punishment for failure is pretty rare. That could however change at any moment, and the consequences (beyond possible legal ones) would be that the registrar would loose accreditation.

exclusiv 7y ago

> (in the same way that land ownership isn't private) You can make land ownership private by holding it in certain entities. I personally don't think land ownership should be public anyway. Nor do I think home ownership should be public.

markdown 7y ago
Maybe in your country, where corporations make the laws. In most of the world, the ownership of "entities" is also public data. The privilege of being an entity is bestowed by the public through the state, and any status or license granted by the the collective (the state) is and ought to be public information.
- michaelt 7y ago
  What happens in your country if a foreign company wants to buy some land?
  - chx 7y ago
    Depends. Some countries ban homes, some agricultural land but other forms investment might be available.
- exclusiv 7y ago
  That seems like an attempted insult on the US but your comment is dishonest. There are a lot of layers to laws (Constitution, Congress, state's rights and their laws, local laws, etc). What country are you from? I'd be interested to read up on any country that doesn't have corporate lobbyists or special interests involved in lawmaking. Anyway for future reference, unless specified, most readers are going to assume you are referring the US.
- eru 7y ago
  > In most of the world, the ownership of "entities" is also public data. The privilege of being an entity is bestowed by the public through the state, and any status or license granted by the the collective (the state) is and ought to be public information. Under that theory, bestowing the privilege of privacy doesn't seem any difference to bestowing the privilege of being an entity. So why should we do one but not the other? What are the trade-offs?