Careful with the whois protection
I’ve seen some spammers use whois protection from small registrars or webhosts. The problem with that, is that the guy whose name is on the registration, is the one who’ll receive the flak and get a reputation for being a spammer.
So, unless you’re GoDaddy or something similar, with a whole department for whois protection, don’t go there. Don’t front for your customers, unless you know them personally and can walk over and drag them by the ear to make restitution if they do something stupid.
December 5th, 2005 at 3:28 pm
Users of these services should also be careful. According to whois information they don’t even own their domain. It is always important to own your domain. If you get into an arguement with the registrar they could take your domain.
Larger services like DomainsByProxy (what GoDaddy uses) are a bit expensive I think, but they do provide a valueable service. I use them.
In some countries private registration like this isn’t even legal.
December 11th, 2005 at 9:20 am
I found your site through gpshewandotcom and while I don’t always understand what you’re talking about, I enjoy following your battles against spam.
Whois protection is an interesting topic for me right now as I know someone (Mr. Blogger) who is currently anonymous on Blogger but who wants to get rid of the .blogspot address and transfer his popular blog to a blogging software like WordPress.
The problem is, once Mr. Blogger buys his own domain, his readers will know who he is, so he’s put it off until he can figure out what to do. But the more popular he gets, I’m afraid the more likely it is that someone else will buy his domain name and he’ll be stuck with .blogspot.
I told him to use Whois protection as I use it myself to protect my address, e-mail, and telephone number, but not my name, which I want known on my blog. Now I read here that people using Whois privacy don’t even own their domain? Would that include me, too, using my real name but hiding my other data?
What should non-spammers who want internet anonymity do? Mr. Blogger is NOT a spammer, just a popular blogger whose anonymity adds to the appeal of his blog because everybody is guessing who he really is.
Thanks!
December 11th, 2005 at 10:05 am
Bonnie:
I don’t have personal experience with whois protection. But if you decide to use it, you should at least go with the big established services, where people will know at a glance that whois protection is used. Check the terms on GoDaddy. I’m guessing GoDaddy is safe to use, but I wouldn’t try any of the small services like I’ve seen some spammers use.
December 11th, 2005 at 10:39 am
Thanks!
September 7th, 2006 at 7:21 am
I think the whois-protection is a useful tool. What a pitty that not all top-level-domains are covered by this service (.eu. de etc.)