whois information -- How to keep it private?

[ITR]

When you do a whois on a domain name, you get the owners full name, home address, and home phone number.
This can be very dangerous in some situations.

Are there any methods to either make a whois not show any personal info, or somehow mask the info?

I was thinking about just putting in false info, but I'm not sure if thats okay.






.

 

[mudskipper]

I don't know the name of any off of the top of my head, but there are businesses that provide the type of privacy that you are looking for.

After you sign up with the business, they will allow their business info to replace yours for the purpose of whois lookups.

Do a search on google, as I am sure that you will find them. Be sure to read through everything thoroughly to ensure that you retain all rights to your site, whether they will freely give out your info to requesters, etc., etc. Mudskipper
___________________________________________________________________________________

Groucho said it best- "A four year-old child could understand this! Quick! Run out and find me a four year-old child: I can't make heads nor tails out of this!"

 

[NatRH]

I believe godaddy.com is offering this anonymous service.

Take a look at:

http://registrar.godaddy.com/dbp.asp?rhl=gdfront_link&isc=&se=+&from_app=&mscssid=490144

Hope this helps..

 

[mudskipper]

Thx, NatRH--
That was the one that I had heard of. Just couldn't quite knock the info loose from the back of my head! Mudskipper
___________________________________________________________________________________

Groucho said it best- "A four year-old child could understand this! Quick! Run out and find me a four year-old child: I can't make heads nor tails out of this!"

 

[ITR]

That looks pretty good. I'm just a little weary of someone else having ownership of my domain name.

I'm thinking I'm just going to put a bogus company name as the owner and contact, with the address and phone of my old address.

 

[GoldenEternity]

Be careful about giving false information to NSI... You might be handing over your domain to someone else, or end up not being able to make changes to your domain.

For example, if someone moves in at your old address, they could always say that you had left the company and they needed to update the contact info.

You might want to contact NSI (or your registrar) to see what sort of privacy options they can provide. I'm sure they've heard some concerns about this before.

 

[rycamor]

ITR -

I believe it is now illegal to use bogus company names or false addresses for domain ownership. Too many spammers have used this technique to hide the source of spam. Even Network Solutions (Verisign) got into trouble with this recently, and was given a limited time to correct many false entries by their customers. In fact, I think this is partially the reason that the .ORG domain authority is now being awarded to another company. (

http://www.afilias.com/about_afilias/dotorg/index_html)

This is the reason why services like the godaddy.com system (

http://www.domainsbyproxy.com)

exist. They provide the corporate identity as the "official" owner, while protecting you from the general public. However, they also can turn over your real identity to any official request, such as legal services, police, government, etc...

As far as I am concerned, this is an excellent solution. I have already registered two domains this way. The contract they use specifies that they are the official owner of your domain as long as you pay the service, but that you still retain the right to the domain as per your agreement with them. As soon as you stop paying, their services automatically reverts the domain back to your official ownership, so whois queries will now show your actual information. Seems like we have a system that works. -------------------------------------------

Big Brother: "War is Peace" -- Big Business: "Trust is Suspicion"
(

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html)