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Who's paying the registrar? Can DNS records be paid for anonymously?

• TheNorthman 6y ago
  The DNS records in this case are hosted on Cloudflare servers, so presumably for free. If looking at the domain registrar instead, we find the registrar `easyDNS.com`. Their payment options aren't public, so I can't say for sure. I can however say that there is no requirement for domains to be paid through an identifiable mean. Take for example the registrar `njal.la`, a service founded by Peter Sunde, that accepts payment in various crypto-currency.
  • bsaul 6y ago
    That was my original question. I had no idea one could register a domain name without providing identification.
    • salawat 6y ago
      Contrary to popular belief, not everyone is on board with systems aiming to create identifiers that map 1:1 with people. That's a very politically driven philosophy generally intended to enforce a means of auditability or control. The thing that makes it seemingly inevitable to give up identifying information as part of financial transactions is the nature of Credit/Payment processing/Anti-Money Laundering regulations enforcing a KYC (Know-Your-Customer) component to being a legally operating financial transaction processor. Do note, this audit trail creation is a big portion of the push to obviate and disincentivise cash transactions. The thinking goes, if you can only use the financial system by identifying your endpoints, there should be a clear audit trail if anything hinky is going on. Unfortunately, the much less well publicized corollary to that is that suddenly payment processors become an effective population scale control mechanism. This should hopefully cause discomfort on further reflection, but to each their own.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]