4 ms·

To the OP: Good idea but you need some contact info on your site and please remove the "whois privacy" from your whois record for the domain. In all but a lim

by larrys 14y ago

To the OP: Good idea but you need some contact info on your site and please remove the "whois privacy" from your whois record for the domain. In all but a limited amount of cases you don't need that. Use a separate gmail account that forwards to your real email to filter if you are worried about spam. Put another address into the whois and google voice number if you are worried about phone calls. To begin you won't get that many with one domain and you also are preventing anyone who wants to get in touch with you from contacting you. Also, why should someone give you money if you don't even have any info as to who you are that they can trace on your website? (which to repeat I like the idea). Registrars (I run an ICANN registrar) typically push privacy because it's good for them. I've seen privacy on records with businesses that want the exact opposite. Anyone who disagrees please post your thoughts and I will address them individually based on my years in this business. (I'd actually like to hear new reasons why people do this that I haven't heard before).

bonf 14y ago
Feel free to contact us at info@freelancersticker.com - obviously we missed it when we got the site up. I think we got the WHOIS privacy by default on NameCheap. We're not hiding from anyone - our names and profiles are linked on the bottom of the page. I would, however, advise domain owners to be wary of information registered, as they may find their home address and phone number propagated all across the web, mirrored by tons of whois/rtld sites, never to be removed again.
- larrys 14y ago
  "I think we got the WHOIS privacy by default on NameCheap." Funny how that happens now isn't it? You have to ask yourself why are they so eager to give you that? "our names and profiles are linked on the bottom of the page" I was only able to bring up one profile. The rest you have to be connected or logged into linkedin. You have to link in to the linked in public profile. But even then the amount of info is limited unless you pay for the enhanced extra linkedin paid service. Makes much more sense to simply have some info on your site. And certainly not way at the bottom "below" the fold. "as they may find their home address and phone number propagated all across the web" That's definitely a valid concern. My suggestion is simply to use a school address, po box or other contact address. For phone number as mentioned get a google voice number (or another service if you already have google voice.) While it isn't advised and there are reasons not to do the following I can tell you that if you simply made up an address somewhere that would be fine as well. Nobody is policing that. In theory you could lose your domain but in practice that will never happen.
dkrich 14y ago
The timing of this is interesting to me because I recently registered a new domain, opted to leave my contact info public, and have since received an unending barrage of spam emails that I have to attribute to the WHOIS record due to the timing. I agree about publicly displaying contact info, but would like to know some good suggestions for filtering out the crap that comes with it.
- mindcrime 14y ago
  I have my contact info publicly available on all of my domains, and I don't see any specific signs that any of the spam I get is directly attributable to that. But I did get an email from a guy in Canada a couple of weeks ago, asking about buying one of my domains, which I sold to him. Personally I think the benefits of having valid whois info outweigh the negatives, but that's just me...
  - bonf 14y ago
    Whois privacy email addresses will forward incoming mails to you as well. A buying offer can be a smart way to probe the owner behind that privacy wall, who I guess most of the time is just a normal guy/gal...
    - larrys 14y ago
      "Whois privacy email addresses" A turn off for many buyers. They look like bogus addresses. Makes much more sense to take the effort to get a gmail account that looks legit and use that to filter. Then if you get to much spam simply get another gmail and change the whois. Etc.
      - ValentineC 14y ago
        I'm actually receiving a whole load of spam on one of the email addresses provided by my registrar's whois privacy service. I'm guessing that spammers don't care how ugly an email address looks, as long as they reach someone. The forwarding thing sounds like a good idea. Not turning off people interested in one of my domain names is an awesome bonus.
bluefinity 14y ago
> Put another address into the whois If you run an ICANN registrar, you should be aware that ICANN requires whois information to be accurate. Providing incorrect data is grounds for cancellation of your domain name. I guess long as you can still be reached from the address it would be fine though? Personally, I use whois privacy because I don't want my physical address (and identity) to be publicly available. I had one domain that didn't have privacy years ago, and I kept getting snail-mail spam every year asking me to "renew" it, from some registrar I'd never heard of.
- larrys 14y ago
  "Providing incorrect data is grounds for cancellation of your domain name." Not speaking for other registrars of course but what's the chance that we will cancel your domain because there is "inaccurate" info? In order to do that someone would have to file a complaint with ICANN then ICANN contacts us and we send you an email telling you to fix the info. And we would bend over backwards before cancelling the domain because who wants to deal with how pissed you'd be if we did that? What do we have to gain vs. what do we have to lose. Do a test. Register a name with, say namecheap or godaddy. Purposely put in bad info (not bogus looking but just wrong). The file an complaint with ICANN. See what happens. (And that's after someone files a complaint how or why would someone care to do that?)

by larrys 14y ago

bonf 14y ago

Feel free to contact us at info@freelancersticker.com - obviously we missed it when we got the site up. I think we got the WHOIS privacy by default on NameCheap. We're not hiding from anyone - our names and profiles are linked on the bottom of the page. I would, however, advise domain owners to be wary of information registered, as they may find their home address and phone number propagated all across the web, mirrored by tons of whois/rtld sites, never to be removed again.

larrys 14y ago
"I think we got the WHOIS privacy by default on NameCheap." Funny how that happens now isn't it? You have to ask yourself why are they so eager to give you that? "our names and profiles are linked on the bottom of the page" I was only able to bring up one profile. The rest you have to be connected or logged into linkedin. You have to link in to the linked in public profile. But even then the amount of info is limited unless you pay for the enhanced extra linkedin paid service. Makes much more sense to simply have some info on your site. And certainly not way at the bottom "below" the fold. "as they may find their home address and phone number propagated all across the web" That's definitely a valid concern. My suggestion is simply to use a school address, po box or other contact address. For phone number as mentioned get a google voice number (or another service if you already have google voice.) While it isn't advised and there are reasons not to do the following I can tell you that if you simply made up an address somewhere that would be fine as well. Nobody is policing that. In theory you could lose your domain but in practice that will never happen.

dkrich 14y ago

The timing of this is interesting to me because I recently registered a new domain, opted to leave my contact info public, and have since received an unending barrage of spam emails that I have to attribute to the WHOIS record due to the timing. I agree about publicly displaying contact info, but would like to know some good suggestions for filtering out the crap that comes with it.

mindcrime 14y ago
I have my contact info publicly available on all of my domains, and I don't see any specific signs that any of the spam I get is directly attributable to that. But I did get an email from a guy in Canada a couple of weeks ago, asking about buying one of my domains, which I sold to him. Personally I think the benefits of having valid whois info outweigh the negatives, but that's just me...
- bonf 14y ago
  Whois privacy email addresses will forward incoming mails to you as well. A buying offer can be a smart way to probe the owner behind that privacy wall, who I guess most of the time is just a normal guy/gal...
  - larrys 14y ago
    "Whois privacy email addresses" A turn off for many buyers. They look like bogus addresses. Makes much more sense to take the effort to get a gmail account that looks legit and use that to filter. Then if you get to much spam simply get another gmail and change the whois. Etc.
    - ValentineC 14y ago
      I'm actually receiving a whole load of spam on one of the email addresses provided by my registrar's whois privacy service. I'm guessing that spammers don't care how ugly an email address looks, as long as they reach someone. The forwarding thing sounds like a good idea. Not turning off people interested in one of my domain names is an awesome bonus.

bluefinity 14y ago

> Put another address into the whois If you run an ICANN registrar, you should be aware that ICANN requires whois information to be accurate. Providing incorrect data is grounds for cancellation of your domain name. I guess long as you can still be reached from the address it would be fine though? Personally, I use whois privacy because I don't want my physical address (and identity) to be publicly available. I had one domain that didn't have privacy years ago, and I kept getting snail-mail spam every year asking me to "renew" it, from some registrar I'd never heard of.

larrys 14y ago
"Providing incorrect data is grounds for cancellation of your domain name." Not speaking for other registrars of course but what's the chance that we will cancel your domain because there is "inaccurate" info? In order to do that someone would have to file a complaint with ICANN then ICANN contacts us and we send you an email telling you to fix the info. And we would bend over backwards before cancelling the domain because who wants to deal with how pissed you'd be if we did that? What do we have to gain vs. what do we have to lose. Do a test. Register a name with, say namecheap or godaddy. Purposely put in bad info (not bogus looking but just wrong). The file an complaint with ICANN. See what happens. (And that's after someone files a complaint how or why would someone care to do that?)