ICANN Studies Secretive Domain Owners

alphadogg quotes from a Network World piece reporting on ICANN's study of the prevalence of proxy services that shield registrants' personal information from WHOIS queries. "Approximately 15% to 25% of domain names have been registered in a manner that limits the amount of personal information available to the public... according to the preliminary results of a report from ICANN... Domain owners who want to limit the amount of personal information available to the public generally use a privacy [proxy] service. ... [Proxy services] register domain names on behalf of registrants. The main objective of ICANN's study — which was based on a random sample of 2,400 domain names registered under .com, .net, .org, .biz, and .info — is to establish baseline information to inform the ICANN community on how common privacy and proxy services are." Spammers and other miscreants abuse the ability to register domains by proxy, in order to avoid being found; but ordinary users have a legitimate interest in keeping their personal information out of the hands of those same bad actors. What's the right balance?

Comments

Right balance? What .uk has

[IBBoard]

The right balance is what .uk domains have - free information hiding for non-trading individuals, but information displayed for companies. They still have your information, but you don't have to show it to the world and you don't have to pay someone to hide it. As long as "squatting on a domain and pumping it full of ads" is considered "trading" then it's the perfect balance.

Re:Right balance? What .uk has

[sopssa]

In my opinion better balance would be based on if the individual is a person or a company. I do not want my personal information like name, address, phone number and so on all over the internet. Even if the site contains ads on it.

On the other hand having your company info available in whois is quite an non-matter, theres public records available already and it doesn't break any individuals privacy.

Re:Right balance? What .uk has

[sumdumass]

A lot of company domain names are registered to individuals inside the company for some reason. I've had to deal with that many times over the years when a former IT person is listed as the owner and is the only one capable of making changes to it. Anyways, I don't think there is anything that could stop that from happening on purpose. A reason you might want to do it on purpose might be in order to get around the public knowing your associated with several different sights praising your products or pretending to sell them because they're the best.

I got a domain once for the purpose of protesting some things on a local level. The more popular the site became, the more annoying it was. I used fake information (this was before it became against the law to do so) but kept the admin Email and contact phone number to a legitimate line. I got threats and all kinds of crap including the phone ringing at 2 am because someone wanted to disagree with something. I ended up paying a company to list themselves as the owner. It's what stopped the calls and crap. I've since given the site away to some like minded people who use it to this day.

I can see why someone would want their info hidden.

Re:Right balance? What .uk has

[jonbryce]

If you are trading on the internet, the EU's E-Commerce directive requires you to publish your contact details on your website.

Re:Right balance? What .uk has

[frisket]

I disagree. Leaving aside the squatters and ad-pumpers (I wish we could :-) the "ordinary user" should not be able to hide their identity. Hiding physical address details is an unfortunate but acceptable security restriction today; but hiding email, phone, and other contact data is just wrong. It's abused by thousands of companies to prevent people contacting them when their poxy products fail, or to hide their true ownership and identity. Registering a personal domain is one thing; registering a domain as a business should bring with it the responsibility to publish valid contact information and keep it up to date. It should be illegal for registrars to hide the identity of their business registrants.

Re:Right balance? What .uk has

[xaxa]

That's almost exactly what UK domains have:

$ whois [whatever].__.uk

        Domain name:
                [whatever].__.uk

        Registrant:
                Joe Bloggs

        Registrant type:
                UK Individual

        Registrant's address:
                The registrant is a non-trading individual who has opted to have their
                address omitted from the WHOIS service.

There's a box to tick when you register a .uk asking if you'd like your address hidden. You can't hide your name, but you could put "J Bloggs" and become a little more anonymous.

Whether it breaks your privacy depends what you're doing with the site. I have a friend who has a fetish modelling site, she doesn't want to be traceable from it.

Re:Right balance? What .uk has

[Borov]

Yup: "Article 5 General information to be provided 1. In addition to other information requirements established by Community law, Member States shall ensure that the service provider shall render easily, directly and permanently accessible to the recipients of the service and competent authorities, at least the following information: [...]" Check out the EU Directive

Re:Right balance? What .uk has

[rtb61]

I can't help it, Oh Noes it's a telephone book, run away, run away. Show juts one add and it is commercial and you are responsible for that add, you showed it, you profited by it and you are not entitled to hide from the consequences of it and, that includes emails from that domain that contain an add in any way shape or form. You want net privacy, easy, don't get a domain name.

Re:Right balance? What .uk has

[Nuskrad]

Well every registered company in the UK needs to have a publicly available trading address anyway, which can be found on the Companies House database... though I believe this can be a PO Box to give some anonymity.

In the event...

[Anonymous Coward]

where someone's personal information needs to be found out, can't it be found out via a court order if a crime is suspected?

Re:In the event...

[sopssa]

where someone's personal information needs to be found out, can't it be found out via a court order if a crime is suspected?

Yes and the privacy services almost always state this in terms of service too, as well as removing the service in case of spamming and so on.

Spammers and others just use fakes names anyway, so privacy registration doesn't change anything regarding that, but providers better privacy for real people.

Re:In the event...

[supernova_hq]

Assuming everyone who registers a domain lives in the US....

I just want my e-mail protected

[Blejdfist]

I have registered a few domains by proxy, but the only reason is to have my e-mail address hidden so those pesky spammers won't scrape it of the whois entry.

Re:I just want my e-mail protected

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm the same way. The address that I used for my domains got so passed around from spammer database to spammer database, that I ended up just having the forward of the account go to /dev/null. So, the few domains I have are done by proxy, and the E-mail that is the contact does not get 5000 emails for your usual crap a day, not to mentional the occassional threat by a spammer to use usernames as From: addresses if I don't pay some guy with e-gold within 3 days.

Re:I just want my e-mail protected

[vlm]

So scraping is not possible, unless they want to snail mail spam me, which apparently is far too much work as I have never had postal spam resulting from it.

Lucky you... Until I renewed for like 10 years, and was annually renewing, for a few months around renewal time I got postal junk mail try superficially to "renew" but it was actually a transfer request.

Specifically I got endless junk from DROA

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_Registry_of_America

"In 2003, the Federal Trade Commission reached a settlement with the company for practices such as transferring domain registrations to their service under the guise of domain renewal, a practice known as domain slamming, and having hidden fees. Despite this action, the company still sends mass direct mail to consumers resembling invoices with "domain name expiration notice" in bold print."

Re:Don't hide.

[Anonymous Coward]

Network Solutions is now pushing its customers to make their info private when they renew.
My boss recently renewed our domain and happily told me about how they made his info private for only a few dollars more.
He was under the impression that this would keep away hackers and spam... when i told him what he really paid for he was pretty annoyed.

100% anonymous!

[iYk6]

Nobody yet has mentioned the easiest, most reliable method of registering a domain name anonymously. Just enter fake information in the database. As long as it isn't obviously fake, like Fuck You at Fuck St, Fuck, 11111, it won't get deleted. And you don't have to worry about the proxy company selling it, or accidentally giving it away to hackers.

This of course won't solve the credit card has your name problem, but you can get anonymous debit cards from most grocery stores.

Re:100% anonymous!

[X0563511]

Of course, the email addresses you enter MUST be valid and accessible, lest you ever want to do various things such as transferring domains.

Re:100% anonymous!

[sumdumass]

It also doesn't solve the problem that providing fake information to domain registrars is a felony in the US and probably a couple more countries. In fact, if you commit a felony that is somehow connected to a domain with fake registration information, your sentence is automatically increased by 7 years or doubled whichever is less.

I'm not sure I would recommend doing that. And if your in a country where it isn't illegal, then make sure the registrar isn't or it could suck you into the law there. I'm not sure they would extradite you or anything, but a warrant could sneak up on you down the road when attempting to get a better job or visiting certain countries or if the cops in your own country get a boner for you and want to use it as an excuse to take you down town once a year and hold you for several days seeing if anyone wants to extradite you. I was once held for 3 days on 4 or 5 unpaid parking tickets from 10 years prior that happens 5 months after I sold the car.

Re:100% anonymous!

[sakdoctor]

I copied this idea from Microsoft.com and put: Administrator, Domain
as my name for my small business site.

Sometimes I even get physical mail with "Dear Mr Domain Administrator..."

Re:100% anonymous!

[Baron_Yam]

When I registered a domain for my small company, I used out-of-date address information and haven't updated it in a decade. The only accurate information is the (Hotmail) email address so I can change the DNS server addresses if necessary.

If anything ever comes of it, I can just say, "Oh, yeah, forgot to update that..."

There's no need for my contact information to be made mandatory by law. All countries have stupid laws on the books... this is one for the U.S.A.

Re:100% anonymous!

[S.O.B.]

If you've been managing DNS records for over 10 years and you don't know what's meant by "transferring domains" then you really don't know what you're doing and should "transfer" your domains to someone who does.

Re:100% anonymous!

[sumdumass]

It seems your right. Further examination of the law indicates that the false information is illegal on it's own only when tied to trademark and copyright violations.

However, the sentencing enhancements (see section g) seem to apply to any felony committed that can be tied to false domain information. I'm assuming this could be tied to failures to report taxable income that becomes a felony (under reporting sales from the site), to committing felony fraud or anything else that the domain could be linked to.

The domain proxy services wouldn't necessarily cause a violation of this law. That's because you are contracting the proxy service to purchase-register the domain on your behalf in which they promise to allow you the control and ownership rights to. The information wouldn't be false, it would just be complicated or obscured but still accurate and readily availible.

Re:Don't hide.

[Lincolnshire Poacher]

> If you want a domain, you will have to stand that you are public.

Says the poster whose profile reads:

(email not shown publicly)

My registrar proxies my personal information and forwards any legitimate queries. Every year I am required to re-validate my information. This ensures that I can be contacted regarding the domain and can respond appropriately. Why then does any third party require my street address and phone number?

Re:Don't hide.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want a domain, you will have to stand that you are public.

If you want to hide your personal information start a company and register the domain on the company.

Why? I own a small site with a non-existant readership. I do little doodles and post them there ("webcomic" would be insulting to the people that actually write comics). It doesn't sell anything, is totally divorced from the real universe in both setting and characters, and exists purely for fun. If you want to get in touch there is an email address in the About page, or the WHOIS data will tell you who the web host is, and they'll pass it on to me. Adding personal info that the WHOIS requests like name, address and telephone number would add absolutely nothing to the website, and would just splash my personal data all over the web regardless of the fact that people can contact me without it anyway. If there was ever a legal situation where I refused to reveal my identity then the hosting company has all of that.

To me, your suggestion is like saying *anyone* posting *anything* on the web should stand up publicly and reveal personal info. It's pointless, and just exposes personal data apparently for the hell of it. Would you fancy adding your name, address and telephone number to your Slashdot account?

Re:Don't hide.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want a domain, you will have to stand that you are public.

If you want to hide your personal information start a company and register the domain on the company.

I let my "privacy shield" accidentally lapse on my domain. Keep in mind the type of information that is listed on a WHOIS LOOKUP. Let me post and censor mine

[Querying whois.internic.net]
[Redirected to whois.srsplus.com]
[Querying whois.srsplus.com]
[whois.srsplus.com]
thedomainthatiamcurrentlyusing.com

Registrant:
                MyFirstName MyLastName (myprivategmailaddress@gmail.com)
                1234 MyHomeAddress, Apartment X
                Raleigh, NC 27607
                US
                N/A

Domain Name: thedomainthatiamcurrentlyusing.com

Administrative, Technical, Billing Contact:
                MyFirstName MyLastName (myprivategmailaddress@gmail.com)
                1234 MyHomeAddress, Apartment X
                Raleigh, NC 27607
                US
                N/A

My usage: I use my domain name for no-ip dyndns service. When registering a domain, you have to provide a valid address. I get snail-mail from people using my whois information (the last one was from some other company trying to get me to transfer my domain to them).

There are plenty of uses for a domain that are not commercial. "go start a company" is not a logical solution to the problem.

Maybe its un-intetnional.

[wjh31]

I purchased the domain for my site through my web host, as a result if you look up the domain on whois all you get are the details for the host rather than me.C ould it be that the number is so high because of the average joe registering through a site that puts its own details forward to the likes of whois, rather than because the majority of people are intentionally trying to hide their details. Hanlon's Razor. Or have i just completely mis-understood this.

Re:Maybe its un-intetnional.

[herojig]

Most ISPs in India/Nepal operate like this as well. It's not true you can't change domains or that you don't own the domain, it just means that you have to go through your provider to make any changes. Not a big deal, just an email.

Re:Maybe its un-intetnional.

[sopssa]

Until the domain gets popular enough and there comes a disbute between you and the host.. Domain ownership is solely based on that information.

Re:Maybe its un-intetnional.

[sjames]

That depends on the quality of the ISP. Some will just do the transfer. Others will auto-renew you at an outrageously high annual rate, then refuse to transfer the domain until you pay the balance. That is, they will hold the domain hostage.

The cheaper the hosting, the more likely they will hold your domain hostage if you try to leave.

Re:Maybe its un-intetnional.

[AG the other]

I work, occasionally, for a small ISP and we have quite a few people who's domains we "own". We charge them about $10 a year extra to handle registration tasks and such.
Lots of people figure that $10 is a bargain.
If and when they want to change hosts we transfer them to the new host in whatever manner the customer desires. It's called customer service. If you as a company rip someone's domain off they'll tell 30 or 40 people a year about their bad experience.
If you as a company provide someone good service they will mention that good service and sometimes even come back to you, which some of them have.

Re:Don't hide.

[dbIII]

I think "Heroes" pointed this situation out quite well when Hiro and Anjo turned up on online stripper Nikki's doorstep after reading the whois information for her domain. You don't always want people to be able to find your physical address.

namecheap

[JimboFBX]

My only experience with domain registration is with namecheap (and I highly recommend them). It (for free) has a tool called whoisguard which puts all your personal information as a random string of numbers and letters @whoisguard.com (it also has a free dynamic DNS client so people with non-fixed IPs can update as needed). The e-mail itself still forwards to your real e-mail address, but that random string can get updated weekly to prevent it being sold. Simple to say, I never got a single bit of spam.

Funny thing is, I called up namecheap to verify they were legitimate before registering with them and their answering machine gave me the impression that it was a one-man operation. I'm curious if they really are.

In contrast, I used to intern for a business that did register with their real contact information. Besides getting fax spam and e-mail spam, we also got a scammer who used Sprint TTY to try to get us to order 6 laptops through Dell and mail them to New Jersey.

The purpose for whois contact info has changed

[Anonymous Coward]

Way back when technical contacts used to use whois data to call each other when there was a problem. Domain contacts were people that actually knew something about networking or system administration. Today this use is pointless. The typical domain owner doesn't manage there network or the systems hosting their web pages. What it mutated into was ICANN helping trademark owners or MAFIAA organizations being able to more easily sue people.
Note that some of the CCTLD owners haven't been strong armed into signing away their authority to ICANN yet and keep contact info out of whois. For example tonic.

Why did they even bother?

[damn_registrars]

ICANN is about to start selling gTLDs. With the gTLDs go all the TOS and AUP authority that ICANN at one point pretended to enforce on .com, .net, and .org (last I heard those three are not yet for sale). Just wait and see how much more spam you'll get when they sell .drug, .pill, .viagra, etc...

So what they think they are accomplishing by studying obfuscated domain registration data now, I would like to know. Because soon the vast majority of all WHOIS data in the world won't be worth crap or even have consistent or meaningful requirements.

Part of me wonders if this "study" is just a preliminary step towards them eventually selling all the rights to .com, .net, and .org so they can pull a huge one-year profit, and subsequently tell those of us who ask them to do their jobs (in registrar accreditation) to STFU.

There are other options.

[www.sorehands.com]

I use my attorney's office for my information. You can always use a P.O. Box, or a mail service center.

Reasons not to use WHOIS "privacy" services

[Animats]

Reality check:

• In the European Union and in California, anonymous businesses are illegal.
• The listed registrant owns the domain. If you're using a "privacy service", you don't own the domain; you're just leasing it from the privacy service. Customers of RegisterFly, the domain registrar that collapsed, found this out the hard way. Many customers lost domains in that collapse.
• Google considers "private registration" as a factor in determining whether a site meets their "quality guidelines". Google can't be as tough on this as they should be, though, because Google's revenue model, AdWords, requires a large number of ad-heavy sites. Bing could be tougher; it's too soon to tell.

We take an even harder line on anonymous businesses at SiteTruth, considering them "bottom feeders".

Realistically, putting your real name and address in WHOIS info doesn't hurt you unless you're a crook. My real name and address are on all my domains, and I get maybe one phone call every two years, perhaps a letter or two a year, that seem to come from WHOIS data. I had one threat, back in the 1990s; he's out of business and I'm still here. Any e-mail spam is being filtered out by the usual filters. If you're paranoid, get a P.O. box; that's legal.

Re:Reasons not to use WHOIS "privacy" services

[JimboFBX]

A domain registrar has no excuse for failing. All of their transactions are virtual, require no man power, and always bring in profit. Their overhead is renting out the cheapest building in town (or paying the mortgage on the home they live in) and paying a modest ISP fee that can easily be scaled with the amount of business they get.

Proxy for privacy

[bl968]

As a network administrator I feel that proxy services should be prohibited.

If my customers are having a problem reaching your web site, then I use whois to find the person to contact to resolve the issue. This is necessary more often than you might thing due to routing issues. I can call my upstream ISP if the problem is on their end, but if not you may need to contact your ISP so that the problem can be worked on from both ends.

Any domain not listing the actual contact information for the individuals responsible for the domain should be dropped from the db. There are other ways to handle contacts which would not require emails to be displayed. It's that simple. Whois information identifies the mailing address for the registered owner of the domain, and the full contact information for the technical and administrative contacts. For most cases that should be the domain administrators at your hosting company. If you opt to place your own information in those fields, then your information should be made available.

One rule for everyone - NO private info.

[tomhudson]

Spammers hide their info. If you're running a legit domain, post your owner and admin contact info. It's part and parcel of running a domain, same as a license plate is part and parcel of driving a car, or your name, signature, bank address, and account number on any checks you write.

This isn't a "why keep the info private if you have nothing to hide" issue - it's about transparency and holding people accountable - and not just spammers. The requirement for valid info would go a good ways towards reducing the amount of spam, which benefits everyone.

Putting in valid contact info also means that a proxy can't hold your domain hostage if you want to transfer it. If it's worth nothing, there's no harm in putting in correct info, and if it's worth something, there's risk in putting in bogus info. Either way, it's one more party to go through, one more link in the chain that can screw up. Not worth the hassle to make your contact info private.

More importantly !

[unity100]

a lot of people use those proxy services in order to shield their personal data from their repressive governments in other countries. a proxy in u.s. will not give out data to random repressive country # 2318765, when they ask for the details of the dissenter that is running a blog. its very important for people who live in less civilized countries, for making a stand and changing things.