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Shielding Domain Registration Info? 93

Posted by Cliff from the anonymous-to-whois dept.
occamboy asks: "I'd like to register a new domain, but I'm tired of getting tons of spam (most filtered, but some not) and snail mail whenever I register a new domain. In short, I'd like the domain, but I don't want to announce the details of its owner to the world. I was thinking of using GoDaddy's domain proxy, but the terms are scary: they reserve the right to change the agreement anytime, by posting the new terms on their site, and the buyer automatically agrees to the new terms. What's to prevent them from grabbing my domain name from me, or doing some other nefarious thing? So, is there any good way to anonymously acquire a domain? Should I just register with fake info, use a service ... or what?"
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Shielding Domain Registration Info? More

Shielding Domain Registration Info?

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  • But use a real email address (in case you lose your password and such). This will at least cut down on the junk paper mail. Hope this helps!

    • Re:Use fake information (Score:5, Informative)

      by brewthatistrue ( 658967 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @02:49AM (#10353503)
      well, if you are worried about what agreements you are entering into, ICANN requires valid contact information. How often your info will be checked for validity varies, but if you get caught with fraudulent info you can lose your domain. http://www.icann.org/registrars/wdrp.htm http://www.internetprivacyadvocate.org/ProtectYour PersonalInfo.htm (urls via google keywords: whois contact icann)

  • PO Box (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Arngautr ( 745196 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @02:40AM (#10353480)
    I use a PO Box and an email account I can throw away if things get too bad. I think I might try the 'protected' option next time as the price isn't too bad.

    • Re:PO Box (Score:2, Insightful)

      by svanstrom ( 734343 )
      The PO box might not be a bad idea, but if you're outside the US you won't really need that (I get one snailmailspam per owned domain per year nowadays).

      You also might want to get yourself a good spamfilter, instead of trying to hide.

      Personally I use a combination of procmail (on in and outgoing e-mails) and bogofilter, which has for the past cpl of years (basically since bogofilter was created) stopped more than 99+% of all spam; with less than 1 false positive per month (out of 3'000-5'000 caught spam p

      • Re:PO Box (Score:4, Insightful)

        by anthony_dipierro ( 543308 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @08:17AM (#10354181) Journal

        The PO box might not be a bad idea, but if you're outside the US you won't really need that (I get one snailmailspam per owned domain per year nowadays).

        Assuming the only reason you want the PO box is to stop junk mail. Personally I don't want any random slashdotter finding out my address.

        • If someone wants your address bad enough, they're not going to stop at whois. (I guess this is a bit trollish, since I use a PO box in domain registrations, too. But I have no illusion that someone who wanted to find out where I live could if they so desired.) I also take the added precaution of misspelling my name. If I were ever called on it, I could claim it was a typo. But it makes it harder to use Google, county property tax records, or what have you to find me.

          • Re:PO Box (Score:2, Interesting)

            by anthony_dipierro ( 543308 )

            If someone wants your address bad enough, they're not going to stop at whois.

            Heh, it took the FBI about a year to find me back in 96 (some idiot was running a vigilante justice site on my webhosting site and apparently was sending threatening letters through the USPS, eventually they were able to trace me through my New York license which they got after finding my New Jersey address on whois and then tracing that to my New York address, finally they called me one day and asked for the contact information

          • Probably a good idea, years ago an internet freind in Australia got wigged out over a nazi spam she got. Wasn't to hard to track it through it British host to someone in florida, never was completely sure exactly who sent it but it was either a father or a son and I found street addresses on both.

            I occaslionaly google for my name, user names I use, telephone number, SSN and driver liciense number just to see what everybody else can see.
    • Good idea, but that's not really what a post office box is for as far as domains is concerned. See my post below.

  • godaddy (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Da_Slayer ( 37022 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @02:41AM (#10353482)
    Currently I use domain's by proxy via godaddy for my domain names. Yeah the terms are scary and I have also started looking for some place else to go. I got a letter in the mail (actual paper) from another domain company asking me if I want to switch. I personally do not like the idea of people seeing my info and being able to spam me to high heaven on the listed email address.

    Honestly if your just a normal site with nothing illegal on it I do not see the need for other peopel to see your personal information.

    As for using fake information... I think that the US government is cracking down on this and is passing laws to really kick you in the butt for using false information. Currently this is a lose lose situation.

    All a domain registry company needs to be sucessful is to have all information listed for the WHOIS as anonymous and only release it with a court order. Which would have to be hand delivered by an officer of the law. That is just my opinion, I could be wrong.
    • I did some more reading of the TOS for Domains by Proxy. I like how they can totally kill your account and domain name without any real proof or contact to you. It is one of those nice catch all things that big corporations put in:

      4. DBP'S RIGHTS TO DENY, SUSPEND, TERMINATE SERVICE AND TO DISCLOSE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION ...
      (iii) resolve any and all third party claims, whether threatened or made, arising out of Your use of a domain name registered by DBP on Your behalf; or (iv) take any other action DBP

  • Sneakemail it (Score:5, Informative)

    by polymath69 ( 94161 ) <dr.slashdot@[ ]lnull.com ['mai' in gap]> on Sunday September 26, 2004 @02:42AM (#10353485) Homepage
    This won't do anything about the postal spam, but give your email as a sneakemail [sneakemail.com] address. Then whenever that address gets harvested for spam, you can cancel it, set up a new one, and update your whois record.

    It will still get harvested... but you'll probably only have to cycle it a couple of times a year. The three or four spams a year that'll get through is probably negligible.

    This is a good strategy for /. email, too.

    • My UK Nominet registration doesn't include an e-mail address in their WHOIS info.

      If it did I'd use http://www.spamgourmet.com/ [spamgourmet.com] to provide a disposable address.

    • Re:Sneakemail it (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      As long as you check your email, of course.

      If someone makes ANY complaint against you about your domain or your website, your registrar will typically email you a notification and require a response/action on your part to prevent your domain from being redirected to NULL. If you fail to response, they will assume that your address is fake and then shut down your domain on the basis of false information in your registration.

      I had some underage little twit complain about my website. I don't know what their

      • Re:Sneakemail it (Score:3, Informative)

        by Mr. Slippery ( 47854 )

        Why is it so hard to have one set of private records for the registrar and another set for the public and to do it without charging an extra $10/yr per domain?!

        Because running a domain is a responsibility [faqs.org]. As RFC 1591 puts it,

        Concerns about "rights" and "ownership" of domains are inappropriate. It is appropriate to be concerned about "responsibilities" and "service" to the community.

        If you don't want the responsibilities, including making contact information available, don't have your own domain.

  • That is the best way to go....real email address with a PO or a fake the address.

  • Incorporate (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Rick the Red ( 307103 ) <Rick.The.Red@gma i l .com> on Sunday September 26, 2004 @02:45AM (#10353495) Journal
    Form a company to own the domain, and register it in the name of that company. That way if someone really needs to find you they can, but it will take some work (they'll have to find where you incorporated and then find your name in that paperwork). That should keep the spammers away -- they hate real work.
    • How much does it cost to incorporate in your jurisdiction?

      In these parts, I think it costs a few hundred bucks, maybe more.
    • Ooh, or, instead of starting a company to register the domain, you could buy an identity from the Nigerian and establish residency there, including buying a house (which you could keep empty) to function as a drop-box for mail and the like.

      That'd be easier than getting, like, a PO box.

      -Waldo Jaquith
  • For GoDaddy changing the terms materially, drastically to steal from/rip off customers would result in commercial suicide. As an online business the one thing they have going for them is the trust of their users and their reputation. They loose this and they loose business, they have a lot of business so the short term gains wouldn't match the long term losses.

  • namecheap! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by hookedup ( 630460 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @03:05AM (#10353562)
    namecheap.com [namecheap.com]

    $8.88 USD domain registry, and like 5$ a year for a 'whoisguard' subscription per domain per year..nobody is getting your info without subpoena

    I use them for all of my domains, and couldnt imagine using anyone else..

    Also.. you should be wary of godaddy.. i've heard of them snatching up peoples domain for no good reason..

    • Re:namecheap! (Score:3, Insightful)

      by golgotha007 ( 62687 )
      great tip, I just registered thru them.

      By the way, namecheap is currently running a special, so the $5 'whoisguard' service is currently free. $8.88 for a domain, whoisguard included.

      awesome deal.

      • Re:namecheap! (Score:5, Informative)

        by adam mcmaster ( 697132 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @05:00AM (#10353817) Homepage

        RegisterFly.com offer something similar, only $1 to protect each domain. It puts something like this in the whois record:

        Registrant Contact:
        RegisterFly.com - Ref# 11453500
        Whois Protection Service - ProtectFly.com (11453500.fly@spamfly.com)
        +1.2122952121
        Fax: +1.2122952153
        230 Park Avenue
        Suite 864
        New York, NY 10169
        US

        That email address gets forwarded to your actual address, and it changes every so often so you don't get spam to it.

        • As an IT manager at a previous employer, I once had to consolidate a bunch of domain names to a single vendor (Verisign terms, at the time, didn't suck as much as they seem to now, so that's where we consolidated). All the other domain hosting services let go of the records once they were notified and had verified the validity of my request.

          RegisterFly, on the other hand, fought tooth and nail to hold on to it, and only let go once we got our company attorneys involved. I never understood the reasoning -
    • So when somebody has a legitimate reason to contact you, they're out of luck?

      • Re:namecheap! (Score:3, Insightful)

        by hookedup ( 630460 )
        you have a "Set a new random WhoisGuard email in Whois" option in your account settings.makes accounts like s45nh4k5l2@whoisguard.namecheap.com that point to your real email, it's really quite sweet :)

  • Please don't fake your e-mail address (Score:5, Interesting)

    by cgenman ( 325138 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @03:48AM (#10353680) Homepage
    Sometimes people really do need to contact you. If your domain is causing problems or otherwise interfering with the network, or someone has a dispute with you but would rather not let it escalate to the point of sending nastygrams to the owner of your IP block, it is very convienient to be able to just e-mail someone. That's why it is there. Sending a message out to the larger hosting / access company usually results in absolutely nothing, especially if it is a large hosting company.

    Stay a part of the community. Keep your contact information available and up-to-date.

    • Keeping an email address current is not a big deal. There are anonymous remailers that will produce an email address that you can use once. This provides the benefits of contact in the case of problems.

      Keeping a *name* current, however, has no justification other than wanting to track down domain owners.

      Also, I would expect a domain registrar to consider information in their database confidential, something that they never release or sell.

      Of course, then they just find loopholes like merging with othe

    • Sometimes people really do need to contact you.

      So you're suggesting not only giving a real email address, but actually reading the email which goes to it? That's just ludicrous.

      Personally I give my real name and an efax phone number where you can leave me voice mail. Everything else is fake. Well, the email address isn't "fake". It just forwards to /dev/null.

    • If you were one of the people that gets 600+ messages per day of just pure crap and has had to change e-mail addresses three times in order to start fresh, you wouldn't be saying that.

      That being said, just register a hotmail account and put info there. Check it once a week. If you start getting spam, delete it and make a new one.

      --Dan
      • Actually, I do get a lot of crap. My domain registration e-mail is filtered through POBox.com's spam filter, then my ISP's spam filter, then my local copy of K9, before it hits the hotword killfile filter on my e-mail client. I also give everyone a different e-mail address under one of my domains based upon their name, and simply add those to the killfile when they start spamming up.

        So yes, I get a lot of pure crap. But the benefit of having people able to contact me is worth the effort. Of course I wo
      • Not such a great idea. Hotmail can shut down addresses used for domain registration. They consider it commercial which is against their TOS. Not that they are very quick about it, but it's happened before.

  • Do you know a good registrar? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Futurepower(R) ( 558542 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @03:51AM (#10353686) Homepage

    Do you know a good domain registrar? The first step is to find a good registrar. The second step is to solve the domain registration info problem.

    My experience with GoDaddy is that the company is very abusive. GoDaddy is always trying to sell something else; there are such a huge number of ads that it interferes with proper operation of their web site. Many of the ads seem to me to try to take advantage of people who don't know much about the Internet.

    The GoDaddy web site is, in my opinion, amateurish. There are issues like having a password field with 13 spaces, but actually accepting only 11 characters for a password. (I don't know if they have fixed that since I mentioned it to them.)

    It's simply outrageous that a company says they can change the terms of a contract with you without your permission, or even knowing. Legally, that cannot be a contract. A contract only exists if you agree to the terms. You cannot enter into a contract that is so broad that you agree to be bound by any terms in the future.

    It's amazing how abusive companies are becoming. They seem to be trying to see who can be the most abusive. Have a look at an Ed Foster column that says that the problem is less in Europe: Anti-Sneakwrap Law is UnAmerican [gripe2ed.com].

    I knew a three-year-old who once told me: 1) I can do anything I want. 2) You have no control. This is understandable in a three-year-old, who is merely testing the limits. I don't accept it coming from anyone who is older.

    Things are really bad in the U.S. now, it seems. Everything to help powerful people get richer. Nothing to take care of the average person.

    --
    Bush: Spending money the U.S. doesn't have [brillig.com] to try to make his administration look good.

    • Re:Do you know a good registrar? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by 0x0d0a ( 568518 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @04:32AM (#10353772) Journal
      Of course, the reason why is fear of liability.

      If US legal cases had capped damages, companies wouldn't be so hung up on avoiding the slightest hint of liability, willing to lose customers, even, to avoid the faintest trace.

      A friend from Norway once told me that the reason that Norway doesn't have the problems with ridiculous worries over liability that the US does isn't that it's harder to prosecute a case in Norway. It's just that multimillion dollar awards are unheard of. You get restitution, but not scads of money above and beyond.

      Cut down on the amount of money floating around in the legal system, and you return sanity to the consumer world.
      • > Cut down on the amount of money floating around
        > in the legal system, and you return sanity to
        > the consumer world.

        You've been suckered by insurance industry propaganda. There is no "liability crisis".
        • really? have you ever practiced medicine and paid malpractice insurance?

          I know several doctors who do, even though they have a spotless record, they pay huge premiums.
          • Yes, but that's in large part because of the stock market. Insurance companies don't make a profit on insurance. They make a small, acceptable loss on it, a fraction of a percent, if things are going well.

            They invest the capital they get and that's where they make their money.

            They lost a huge amount of money on the stock market bubble, and the losses they take on the insurance now look larger -- it's a bigger percent in relation to their capital.

            That's not saying that malpractice claims aren't up. Jus
        • Tell that to the general practitioners in West Virginia who are leaving because costs of medical practice have been exceeding revenues.

          I'm not saying that business doesn't like to use liability as a playing card. But there really is a significant problem.
      • If US legal cases had capped damages, companies wouldn't be so hung up on avoiding the slightest hint of liability, willing to lose customers, even, to avoid the faintest trace.

        Puleeze. Try that propaganda someplace where the readers have an average I.Q. under 50.

        For every goofy case you can cite that appears to be an abuse of the system, there are a thousand people who were shafted by corporate america and don't get the justice they deserve. Stop propagating myths trumped up by corporate america to fu
        • And so what is your explanation for the hyper-avoidance of liability in the United States?

          I'm not proposing an end to restitution -- what I don't like is punitive damages.

          For every goofy case you can cite that appears to be an abuse of the system, there are a thousand people who were shafted by corporate america and don't get the justice they deserve.

          The problem is that the current model -- allow those who sue to take as large a chunk of flesh as they can rip off -- clearly has major problems. I'm wat
          • And so what is your explanation for the hyper-avoidance of liability in the United States?

            I'm not proposing an end to restitution -- what I don't like is punitive damages.

            For every goofy case you can cite that appears to be an abuse of the system, there are a thousand people who were shafted by corporate america and don't get the justice they deserve.

            The problem is that the current model -- allow those who sue to take as large a chunk of flesh as they can rip off -- clearly has major problems. I'm watch
            • You know, I KNEW you were going to bring up the McDonald's case as an example, and fall prey to the same ignorant propaganda that you're regurgitate

              Actually, I didn't bring up the case. I was just complaining about my coffee cup. I don't know what set of cases prompted the change -- it could well have been the McDonalds one. You did.

              But, hey, I'm happy to argue about this case, because I've argued against it in the past on Slashdot, and I'm familiar with the arguments both ways.

              For years, McDonald's
    • Things are really bad in the U.S. now, it seems. Everything to help powerful people get richer. Nothing to take care of the average person.

      It's easy to think that when you assume that everybody who owns or runs a business is rich and/or powerful. Too bad that's not the case. Most people who run a small to medium sized business are average people.
    • GoDaddy seems like agood deal but it's not. If you use their masked domain forwarding mode to forward the domain to your host you can only forward a single page!!! yes that's right you can only forward index.html. if you try to do something like
      myMaskedDomain.com/sublevel/page.html
      what happens is goDaddy's asinine servers resolve this as
      Godaddy.com/sublevel/page.html
      which, since there is no sublevel on the godaddy server. so it breaks. you can only forward a specific page on the top level of your
    • I shopped around for years. I refuse to use Godaddy and NSI. I think there is no perfect registrar, but I've been very pleased with Dotster. When I first started they were running a horrendously-inefficient .ASP-based system that croaked during peak hours. I complained and apparently they listened, and converted over to PHP and their system works much better now.

  • GANDI (Score:4, Informative)

    by 0x0d0a ( 568518 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @04:29AM (#10353770) Journal
    You said that you were worry about proxies -- I have secondhand that GANDI [gandi.net] is a good registrar -- prices slightly higer than GoDaddy, but significantly better (as in favoring the user versus the registrar) policies. Not sure if they provide a proxy service.
    • I had trouble with their DNS service when I was using them a few years back.
    • I checked their website and I found that GANDI does not provide a proxy service, but can hide your email address. It is interesting though, that GANDI has released DNS software under the GPL.
      • I'm with GANDI, I like them. One of the reasons I went with them was that they clearly state in theit Ts&Cs that the domain is mine, and that they're just looking after the dns etc for me.
        I don't know much about them except I have had two domains for a few years and no problems. The only communications I get from them are to warn me that the domain registration will expire in a month or so and how to renew if I choose. Very low pressure, it Just Works The Way I Want (tm).
        • I've got several domains with Gandi as well. No ads on their site, no additional-cost "features" that should be part of the deal in the first place. Everything is right there, completely configurable. Not for newbies, though -- I recommend Domain Direct for an easy-to-use interface. DD is a lot higher sometimes, but the nice thing is that they'll give me a cut if you click here [domaindirect.net] (shameless, aren't I?).

          Plus, it's kind of cool to pay 12 euros for a Gandi [gandi.net] domain, and see a few days later how many US bucks

  • Godaddy's domains by proxy (Score:2, Interesting)

    by x69 ( 67469 )
    Be careful using domains by proxy. All someone has to do is email or send a letter to them saying you are violating their copyrights and with or without any proof at all they will release your personal information, remove the proxy service from your domain and charge you a $20 administrative fee.
    I run a website [mp3shitter.com] that lists mp3 song album and song names and I have had this happen to me several times sofar. Be careful.
    -Gerard
    • I run a website that lists mp3 song album and song names and I have had this happen to me several times sofar. Be careful.

      Who cares? That site seems nigh useless. Any reputable warez dealer trades by Bittorrent with md5 signatures for guaraneed accuracy.
      • Who cares? That site seems nigh useless. Any reputable warez dealer trades by Bittorrent with md5 signatures for guaraneed accuracy.

        That is not the point of my original post or the site itself. The site is just a database of when albums were released onto the net and copyright holders just do searches for their .mp3 and send out cease and desist letters although there are no files. Godaddy will release your personal information AND charge you a $20 fee without even checking to see if their claims are valid
  • Why doesn't icann just make a top level domain with the name of .spam. And any body doing spam be required to use it and if not, block their sending domain on the DNS servers and then, the filtering will be easy for anyone who doesn't want to have spam. Just block dotspam.

    Spammers can offer mail accounts on spam channels so those who want spam can get spam accounts on different spam channels. Remember there are those who have eaten spam and liked it. Personally I know of no one who has had this experience
    • If opt-in was enough for the spammers, we wouldn't have spam. If absolutely noone that recieved unsolicited offers bought anything, we wouldn't have spam.

      Spam is there because opt-in does not work - for the spammers. What you are proposing is just that, nothing more. Their target audience will not go out of their way and register to get spammed, but when they get mails anyway, they buy.

      If spammers would be satisfied with your suggestion, it would already have been solved without needing a special TLD.

      If

    • Re:top level domain .spam (Score:4, Funny)

      by theonetruekeebler ( 60888 ) on Monday September 27, 2004 @06:25AM (#10360882) Homepage Journal
      After that, maybe they can require burglars to wear black turtlenecks and a Cato mask, and carry a burlap sack with "LOOT" written on it. If they're caught wearing, say, a tiara, they can be busted for "not dressing like a burglar." Also, supervillains should speak with a Russian accent and wear a cape.

  • Lawyer (Score:3, Informative)

    by Detritus ( 11846 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @08:50AM (#10354256) Homepage
    If you're serious, you should talk to a lawyer. He should know the proper, and legal, ways to register the domain so that the contact info points to your legal representative, not your personal info.

  • Some TLDs allow you to withold your details (Score:3, Informative)

    by dizzyduck ( 659517 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @09:07AM (#10354310) Homepage
    Nominet (administrators of the .uk TLD) allow individuals to withold their personal details from WHOIS via the Registrants Online [www.nic.uk] interface. The only visible information is your name.
    Registrant's Address:

    THE REGISTRANT IS AN INDIVIDUAL WHO HAS ELECTED TO
    HAVE THEIR ADDRESS OMITTED FROM THE WHOIS DATABASE
  • I like registerfly [registerfly.com] they are cheap ($9.99/yr) for a domain name and an extra 99cents/yr to have them hide your whois info. They even throw in 25MB of webspace, offer framed forwarding (no ad banners like register.com), and a bunch of other free services. Once I switched to them, I never looked back. :-)
  • I use MyDomain.com for my domain registrations, 8.50 a year and I get very little junk mail or spam. If you are that worried though, get a free email account and a PO Box, the 25$ a year for the box will be well worth it.

  • Privacy (Score:3, Informative)

    by rawg ( 23000 ) <<phill> <at> <kenoyer.com>> on Sunday September 26, 2004 @11:40AM (#10354935) Homepage
    For email, I setup a email address that only receives mail from the registrar. All other email is bounced.

    For my phone, I'm on the national do not all list. That's an $11,000 fine if someone calls me to sell me something.

    My home/business addresses are not really a problem. The only crap mail I get is from Domain Registry of America. I use junk mail to start my fires when it gets cold. The amount of junk mail I get makes it real easy to start the fire on the first try.

  • Somewhat simple solution (Score:3, Insightful)

    by zangdesign ( 462534 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @01:16PM (#10355472) Journal
    Use a real email address at your domain. Since you control it - set it to filter keep only mail from GoDaddy and your hosting company, since your email from those companies will be coming from known sources.

    Use a second account as your personal email, but don't publish that address and make it something slightly off-kilter so spammers have a harder time guessing it.
    • Problem with this is that these domain registrars like to use alternative domains to contact their customers. Godaddy uses supportwebsite.com for all inquiries, and Network Solutions, well they've got aliase domains up the wazoo.

  • On PO boxes, eamil, and such (Score:4, Informative)

    by dacarr ( 562277 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @01:22PM (#10355495) Homepage Journal
    First, PO boxes. Diverting all domain related snail spam to a post office box really isn't the purpose of putting a PO box in your whois record, it's to divert the attention from where your system really is. I for one really don't get that much snail spam or domain spam (more on that in a second).

    So you get the PO box, for one reason - as far as the untrained eye without a legal proceeding is concerned, your computer with your domain is actually housed inside of a box that, at its smallest, is the size of a one foot thick index card. They need legal documentation to get your real address, and you in turn need to prove to the USPS where you really live.

    The email address is a little simpler. It's easy enough to set in your /etc/aliases file (or whatever your MTA of choice uses) something like 'hostmaster' or 'hostslave' and have it divert to you, and in turn you just have either Procmail or your MUA of choice to stick it in a folder that you might check on once in a while. After a while, remove/change the address, change it in the whois record, and watch as the few spams that come in just kind of bounce.

    In short, in my experience it's really not that much that you're going to get in the way of junk mail of any flavor. YMMV.

  • Dotster (Score:4, Informative)

    by Tumbleweed ( 3706 ) * on Sunday September 26, 2004 @01:32PM (#10355569)
    My registrar is Dotster, who has a free spam whois shield available for its customers. The email address in the domain info given out is really an alias to the one you give them, and that alias shifts like once a week or so (not sure on how often). This is generally not often enough to get onto spam lists, though I have gotten a couple of messages over the last few years. Obviously not something to worry about.
  • I blame one unscrupulous company for most of the problems in this area, and that's the Domain Registry of America scam [dotster.com] where they send out misleading "renewal notices" even though they're not the registrar for the domain. Why these people are still allowed to operate is beyond me.
  • http://www.ev1servers.net [ev1servers.net]

    not only do they do dedicated servers, but you can also get domains through them. you have to sumbit real info for payment, but after you purchase the domain, they have no problem with you putting fake info on your domain.
  • Their NamePrivacy option (for an extra charge) masks all your details. People can still contact you with certified/priority mail to your listed address on your domain, and the email address listed constantly changes making it difficult to harvest. Check them out http://www.namesecure.com
  • RegisterFly.com has a pretty good service [registerfly.com] for this (for only a buck extra per year when you register with/transfer to them), and their terms [registerfly.com] appear to be a lot saner than GoDaddy's.

  • "Anonymous" domain registration problems (Score:4, Informative)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Monday September 27, 2004 @02:12AM (#10360172) Homepage
    • Most of the "anonymous domain registration" schemes involve some dummy party actually being the domain owner. If you ever get into a dispute with that party, you have a problem.
    • Those "indemnification" clauses really matter in a situation like this. If someone goes after the dummy party, you'll end up paying their legal fees.
    • Operating a business anonymously is a criminal offense in many jurisdictions, including California.
    • It's not clear what happens if someone files a Whois Data Problem Report [internic.net] for your "anonymous" domain. But you probably won't like what happens.
    • If someone wants your domain, they could make a case under the UDRP that your registration was in bad faith.
    • Some spam filters may blacklist mail from, or mail that mentions, anonymous domains. It's like putting up a sign that says "I am a slimeball".
    • There are signs of a crackdown on anonymous business web sites. Microsoft is sueing "bullet proof web hosting" firms.
  • a web hosting (or domain-registering) company could do this for all new domains (if the client chooses):
    • use the company as contact info
    • set email address as that-domain-name@domains.webhost.com
    • have incoming email to that email address sit on protected servers forever, but give the client webmail access to it in their members login area
    • that way incoming spam will never bother them, but be there if they need it (like if changing registrars)

    I'll bet something like vpopmail [inter7.com] could do easy unlimited accoun

  • http://www.myprivacy.ca/ (Score:4, Informative)

    by MDMurphy ( 208495 ) on Monday September 27, 2004 @12:51PM (#10363756)
    Use MyPrivacy.ca. They give you a free email address that will forward to your existing address. They only allow email from legit domain hosts to get through unchallenged. If from just anyone, they have to go through a challenge/response system.

    Works great, I've yet to get any Spam in the last few years that I've been using them.

    http://www.myprivacy.ca/
  • Clear down the counter every so often at Spam Gourmet [spamgourmet.com] or adjust the anti-spam behaviour with a Pobox [pobox.com] account.

    Or get your ISP do hold the domain on your behalf

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