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WhoisGuard Privacy Protection is now free

namecheap.com

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Re: WhoisGuard Privacy Protection is now free

#71

Post by oliwarner »

ve55 wrote: post #46

It's pretty absurd to require users to continually pay you money with threat of revealing all of their personal information publicly if they ever choose to stop paying you. I can't imagine many industries getting away with that except for registrars due to how the whois system has worked historically, but it's basically just extortion, keep paying us or you're doxxed. Whois privacy should be the default everywhere fo…

They do provide a contact proxy service as part of this though. So that people who need to contact you can, just without learning who you are. Like a PO box.

And again, you don't have to buy a domain. Or you can go through the same steps I've can to (eg) mask the sale of land and property with an intermediary company.

People's recent outbursts at the WHOIS system strike me as odd. It's been this way for two decades. It's really very similar to other public records.

Re: WhoisGuard Privacy Protection is now free

#72

Post by csomar »

NamecheapCEO wrote: post #64
ve55 wrote: post #46

It's pretty absurd to require users to continually pay you money with threat of revealing all of their personal information publicly if they ever choose to stop paying you. I can't imagine many industries getting away with that except for registrars due to how the whois system has worked historically, but it's basically just extortion, keep paying us or you're doxxed. Whois privacy should be the default everywhere fo…

Completely agree but publishing accurate Whois information is an ICANN requirement for all registrars and not some gimmick set up by registrars to profit from their customers. If we failed to do this we would lose our accredidation. Whoisguard was set up to replace customer info but when we do that we are also exposed to all the legal issues that come with the territory which costs quite a bit to defend. We spend mil…

So ICANN require the information to be public? I thought they just wanted that you provide accurate info to the registrar.

Re: WhoisGuard Privacy Protection is now free

#73

Post by StavrosK »

Kiro wrote: post #66
StavrosK wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe, but it would have been equally as instant to just set all domains as "WhoisGuard purchased until the year 3000" in the database, and much more user-friendly.

No, I don't want WhoisGuard.

"Purchased" isn't the same as "enabled". It just gives you the button on the UI.

Re: WhoisGuard Privacy Protection is now free

#74

Post by corobo »

ploggingdev wrote: post #39

Tangent : what happens to the whois guard if I want to transfer a domain between providers (eg- namecheap to google)? I've heard that during the transfer the whois guard has to be disabled. This means that services such as Domain Tools will log the whois data. Is this true? If so, is there any way to transfer a domain between providers while keeping contact details out of the public whois database?

In my experience you can usually pre-enable whois guard equivalents during the checkout process for the transfer.

From the Domain Tools point of view the transfer should look like Old Whois Privacy LLP on SomeRegistrar transferred a domain to New Whois Privacy Corp on NewRegistrar

Re: WhoisGuard Privacy Protection is now free

#75

Post by ethbro »

csomar wrote: post #72
NamecheapCEO wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely agree but publishing accurate Whois information is an ICANN requirement for all registrars and not some gimmick set up by registrars to profit from their customers. If we failed to do this we would lose our accredidation. Whoisguard was set up to replace customer info but when we do that we are also exposed to all the legal issues that come with the territory which costs quite a bit to defend. We spend mil…

So ICANN require the information to be public? I thought they just wanted that you provide accurate info to the registrar.

https://whois.icann.org/en/primer

Re: WhoisGuard Privacy Protection is now free

#76

Post by s_dev »

chris_overseas wrote: post #8

Can someone explain in more detail why they aren't able why they aren't able to cover certain TLDs (including several falling under GDPR in the EU)? Their FAQ says: "Due to registry restrictions, WhoisGuard cannot be used with .asia, .ca, .cn, .uk, .co.uk, .de, .eu, .in, .id, .me, .uk, .nu, .li, .ch, .fr, .sg, .com.sg, .org.uk, .us, .es, .com.es, .nom.es, .org.es, .com.au, .net.au, .paris, .vote, .voto, .xn--3ds443g,…

.ie is usually only handed out by Irish registrars.

Re: WhoisGuard Privacy Protection is now free

#77

Post by NamecheapCEO »

csomar wrote: post #72
NamecheapCEO wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely agree but publishing accurate Whois information is an ICANN requirement for all registrars and not some gimmick set up by registrars to profit from their customers. If we failed to do this we would lose our accredidation. Whoisguard was set up to replace customer info but when we do that we are also exposed to all the legal issues that come with the territory which costs quite a bit to defend. We spend mil…

So ICANN require the information to be public? I thought they just wanted that you provide accurate info to the registrar.

Yes, it also needs to be made available via public whois.

Re: WhoisGuard Privacy Protection is now free

#78

Post by 0xfeba »

corobo wrote: post #48
ve55 wrote: post #46

It's pretty absurd to require users to continually pay you money with threat of revealing all of their personal information publicly if they ever choose to stop paying you. I can't imagine many industries getting away with that except for registrars due to how the whois system has worked historically, but it's basically just extortion, keep paying us or you're doxxed. Whois privacy should be the default everywhere fo…

I realise it's not even in the same ball park really but the US health service works in that way from an outsider's perspective "Keep paying us or die"

You don't die. At least, not from severe trauma. You die eventually from preventable causes due to lack of preventative care.

You do get crushing medical debt, though. Which my advice would be to declare bankruptcy and/or not pay it.

Re: WhoisGuard Privacy Protection is now free

#80

Post by drwl »

StavrosK wrote: post #43

Ugh, leave it to Namecheap to fuck up extremely simple UX. Instead of just giving me a toggle in the domain settings, I have to add WhoisGuard to my cart, once per domain (for the tens of domains I own), then go and select "10 years" in the purchasing screen (and wait for the entire page to reload) once for each domain, and then go through the entire checkout process to pay $0. Why not just let me click a single butt…

Have you given Google's name service a try? Regardless of all the privacy stuff and etc going on in HN, their product is really nice.
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