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WHOIS blackout period likely starting in May

cooley.com

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Re: WHOIS blackout period likely starting in May

#31

Post by jdietrich »

kbar13 wrote: post #2

domain registration data is in a weird place for the modern internet. I can see the value of having a real registry when it was first developed, but now it seems like a pretty easy way for people to shoot themselves in the foot with regards to privacy. Also, some registrars charge a premium for WHOIS privacy. It should not cost extra to have your legal name and address to be hidden from the entirety of the internet.

WHOIS privacy isn't even an option for some tlds. Nominet require the registrant's legal name and postal address and only offer a discretionary opt-out for non-commercial websites.

https://registrars.nominet.uk/namespace/uk/management/data-q...

Re: WHOIS blackout period likely starting in May

#32

Post by grouseway »

mort96 wrote: post #6
kbar13 wrote: post #2

domain registration data is in a weird place for the modern internet. I can see the value of having a real registry when it was first developed, but now it seems like a pretty easy way for people to shoot themselves in the foot with regards to privacy. Also, some registrars charge a premium for WHOIS privacy. It should not cost extra to have your legal name and address to be hidden from the entirety of the internet.

Do any registrars not charge a premium for Whois privacy? I know Hover doesn't have a separate Whois privacy entry price, but the base price at Hover seems to be about the price of a domain + Whois privacy at other registrars.

I just enter phone/address information for one of those whois privacy proxies without bothering to pay for them. What's the point of paying? The only thing real on my domain registrations is a gmail contact - the rest doesn't matter.

Re: WHOIS blackout period likely starting in May

#33

Post by lamlam »

jyxent wrote: post #22
lamlam wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like what CIRA (the .ca registration authority) does. The default is for them to hide your contact information. You have to opt-in to make it public. They then handle all communications people want to send to you. More registration authorities should take stances like this. Now if only they could get DNSSEC support...

CIRA has had DNSSEC support since 2014. https://cira.ca/dnssec-faqs I use Google Domains and it supports DNSSEC on my .ca domains.

Huh. This is great! Might be a NameCheap (my registrar) limitation. The way it's worded in the management page on NameCheap is that DNSSEC is not supported for .ca period. Definitely something I'll look into. Thanks!

Re: WHOIS blackout period likely starting in May

#34

Post by jedberg »

kbar13 wrote: post #2

domain registration data is in a weird place for the modern internet. I can see the value of having a real registry when it was first developed, but now it seems like a pretty easy way for people to shoot themselves in the foot with regards to privacy. Also, some registrars charge a premium for WHOIS privacy. It should not cost extra to have your legal name and address to be hidden from the entirety of the internet.

When you buy a house, your name and the purchase price are public information. Any one at any time can look up who owns a house, how much they paid for it, and how much they pay in property tax every year.

I get a ton of spam because of this. However, I'd rather have this system than one in which all the owners are secret. I've had to look up owner information before to contact owners of various properties, and having that hidden would have made that task impossible.

You can hide the ownership information of a house, if you pay extra money, by hiring a lawyer to create an entity and put the entity on the property, but then the lawyer has to put their address, and forward any requests on to you, just like the whois privacy folks.

I think it is a good thing that every domain has valid contact info.

Re: WHOIS blackout period likely starting in May

#35

Post by freeone3000 »

mort96 wrote: post #6
kbar13 wrote: post #2

domain registration data is in a weird place for the modern internet. I can see the value of having a real registry when it was first developed, but now it seems like a pretty easy way for people to shoot themselves in the foot with regards to privacy. Also, some registrars charge a premium for WHOIS privacy. It should not cost extra to have your legal name and address to be hidden from the entirety of the internet.

Do any registrars not charge a premium for Whois privacy? I know Hover doesn't have a separate Whois privacy entry price, but the base price at Hover seems to be about the price of a domain + Whois privacy at other registrars.

You could just lie. Only the contact email really matters, and those are anonymously-routable already.

Re: WHOIS blackout period likely starting in May

#37

Post by dictum »

jedberg wrote: post #34
kbar13 wrote: post #2

domain registration data is in a weird place for the modern internet. I can see the value of having a real registry when it was first developed, but now it seems like a pretty easy way for people to shoot themselves in the foot with regards to privacy. Also, some registrars charge a premium for WHOIS privacy. It should not cost extra to have your legal name and address to be hidden from the entirety of the internet.

When you buy a house, your name and the purchase price are public information. Any one at any time can look up who owns a house, how much they paid for it, and how much they pay in property tax every year. I get a ton of spam because of this. However, I'd rather have this system than one in which all the owners are secret. I've had to look up owner information before to contact owners of various properties, and havin…

> However, I'd rather have this system than one in which all the owners are secret.

I don't mean to be cynical, but isn't this system also the one in which some people simply register their houses under a shell company?

Re: WHOIS blackout period likely starting in May

#38

Post by watermelon0 »

jacekm wrote: post #29
lamlam wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like what CIRA (the .ca registration authority) does. The default is for them to hide your contact information. You have to opt-in to make it public. They then handle all communications people want to send to you. More registration authorities should take stances like this. Now if only they could get DNSSEC support...

I like how people responsible for .pl (Poland) domain handle this. First of all, they list only very basic data, with no names, addresses, etc. when you query their whois. To see the full data, you have to go to their website and type the captcha, which filters out at least some of the bots. But even there they display the data if it belongs to a company, they won't show any details if it's registered to a private pe…

Seems like it's the same for .eu domains, and (I think) some other EU countries. For private persons you only see the email, and that's after entering the captcha.

Re: WHOIS blackout period likely starting in May

#39

Post by jedberg »

dictum wrote: post #37
jedberg wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you buy a house, your name and the purchase price are public information. Any one at any time can look up who owns a house, how much they paid for it, and how much they pay in property tax every year. I get a ton of spam because of this. However, I'd rather have this system than one in which all the owners are secret. I've had to look up owner information before to contact owners of various properties, and havin…

> However, I'd rather have this system than one in which all the owners are secret. I don't mean to be cynical, but isn't this system also the one in which some people simply register their houses under a shell company?

Yes, but at least the shell company forwards on the messages. And most people don't do it because it's a hassle.

Re: WHOIS blackout period likely starting in May

#40

Post by BuildTheRobots »

grouseway wrote: post #32
mort96 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do any registrars not charge a premium for Whois privacy? I know Hover doesn't have a separate Whois privacy entry price, but the base price at Hover seems to be about the price of a domain + Whois privacy at other registrars.

I just enter phone/address information for one of those whois privacy proxies without bothering to pay for them. What's the point of paying? The only thing real on my domain registrations is a gmail contact - the rest doesn't matter.

Back a few years ago, NomiNet used to post you a certificate proving ownership every time you registered a .co.uk domain. I recently found a couple when moving house.
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