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Shielding Domain Registration Info?
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?"
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.
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I don't want to rule the world... I just want to be in charge of mayonnaise.
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)
You said that you were worry about proxies -- I have secondhand that GANDI 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.
May we never see th
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.
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.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Allergy advice: Contains eggs.
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.
The above is not worth reading.
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.
This sig no verb.
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.
http://www.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.
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 -- we only had 4 months left with them anyway, and we'd paid such a ridiculously low amount to register the name anyway, I"m certain they spent more manpower dollars in fighting the transfer than they ever could have made on the original domain registration fees.
Truly the worst part (then anyway, YMMV now) was that they didn't have a phone contact method -- most everything had to be done via online chat, and INVARIABLY the person "typing" on the other end (loosely stated because of their awful grammar skills) didn't have a clue. Nevertheless, you may have better experiences with them, but you couldn't pay me to put a domain with them now.
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/