Shielding Domain Registration Info? 93
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?"
Use fake information (Score:2)
Re:Use fake information (Score:5, Informative)
PO Box (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:PO Box (Score:2, Insightful)
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)
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.
Re:PO Box (Score:2)
Re:PO Box (Score:2, Interesting)
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
Re:PO Box (Score:1)
Re:PO Box (Score:1)
Well, I probably hadn't yet filed a tax return for my New York address. I've moved something like 6 times in the last 7 years.
Re:PO Box (Score:2)
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.
Re:PO Box (Score:2)
godaddy (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:godaddy (Score:2)
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)
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.
Re:Sneakemail it (Score:1)
If it did I'd use http://www.spamgourmet.com/ [spamgourmet.com] to provide a disposable address.
Re:Sneakemail it (Score:2, Insightful)
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)
Because running a domain is a responsibility [faqs.org]. As RFC 1591 puts it,
If you don't want the responsibilities, including making contact information available, don't have your own domain.
Get a PO or a fake the address (Score:1)
Incorporate (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Incorporate (Score:2)
In these parts, I think it costs a few hundred bucks, maybe more.
Re:Incorporate (Score:1)
Better Still (Score:1)
That'd be easier than getting, like, a PO box.
-Waldo Jaquith
Changing terms = suicide (Score:2, Insightful)
namecheap! (Score:5, Interesting)
$8.88 USD domain registry, and like 5$ 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 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)
RegisterFly.com offer something similar, only $1 to protect each domain. It puts something like this in the whois record:
That email address gets forwarded to your actual address, and it changes every so often so you don't get spam to it.
Re: RegisterFly.com -- ugh... (Score:2, Informative)
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 -
Re:namecheap! (Score:2)
'international' TLDs tend to be a little more expensive..
Re:namecheap! (Score:2)
Re:namecheap! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:namecheap! (Score:1)
Please don't fake your e-mail address (Score:5, Interesting)
Stay a part of the community. Keep your contact information available and up-to-date.
Re:Please don't fake your e-mail address (Score:2)
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
Re:Please don't fake your e-mail address (Score:2)
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.
Re:Please don't fake your e-mail address (Score:2)
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
Re:Please don't fake your e-mail address (Score:2)
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
Re:Please don't fake your e-mail address (Score:1)
Do you know a good registrar? (Score:4, Insightful)
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)
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.
Re:Do you know a good registrar? (Score:2)
> 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".
Re:Do you know a good registrar? (Score:1)
I know several doctors who do, even though they have a spotless record, they pay huge premiums.
Re:Do you know a good registrar? (Score:1)
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
Re:Do you know a good registrar? (Score:2)
I'm not saying that business doesn't like to use liability as a playing card. But there really is a significant problem.
Re:Do you know a good registrar? (Score:2)
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
Re:Do you know a good registrar? (Score:2)
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
Re:Do you know a good registrar? (Score:2)
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
Re:Do you know a good registrar? (Score:2)
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
Re:Do you know a good registrar? (Score:2)
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.
I AGREE: GODADDY SUCKS (Score:2)
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
Re:Do you know a good registrar? (Score:2)
GANDI (Score:4, Informative)
Re:GANDI (Score:2)
Re:GANDI (Score:1)
Re:GANDI (Score:2)
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).
Re:GANDI (Score:2)
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)
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
Re:Godaddy's domains by proxy (Score:2)
Who cares? That site seems nigh useless. Any reputable warez dealer trades by Bittorrent with md5 signatures for guaraneed accuracy.
Re:Godaddy's domains by proxy (Score:1)
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
top level domain .spam (Score:1)
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
Re:top level domain .spam (Score:2)
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)
Lawyer (Score:3, Informative)
Some TLDs allow you to withold your details (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Some TLDs allow you to withold your details (Score:2)
Registerfly (Score:1)
My Domain (Score:1)
Privacy (Score:3, Informative)
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)
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.
Re:Somewhat simple solution (Score:3, Interesting)
On PO boxes, eamil, and such (Score:4, Informative)
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)
Domain Registry of America scam (Score:2)
Re:Domain Registry of America scam (Score:1)
formerly known as rackshack (Score:1, Informative)
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.
NameSecure (Score:2)
RegisterFly (Score:1)
"Anonymous" domain registration problems (Score:4, Informative)
idea that webhost could do (Score:2)
I'll bet something like vpopmail [inter7.com] could do easy unlimited accoun
http://www.myprivacy.ca/ (Score:4, Informative)
Works great, I've yet to get any Spam in the last few years that I've been using them.
http://www.myprivacy.ca/
SpamGourmet - or pobox. (Score:2)
Or get your ISP do hold the domain on your behalf
Re:A quick overview by way of followup (Score:1)
Precisely. Though, there's never a need to say you have nothing to hide. When somebody wants to go shovel up information about you, that means there's something wrong with them, not you.
Just thought I'd drop by and say that anyone who thinks you owe them your info is the malicious one.