question about registering domain name

vigos

Is there anyway to hide your contact details from the whois database if you register a name?

If so do any companies in Ireland offer this?

forbairt

no irish companies that I know of ... but then I've never checked for it ...

You probably want something like http://www.domainsbyproxy.com/ its a Go Daddy sub company of sorts ... so up to you if you want to use it ...

I don't really like Go Daddy ... but up to you ... maybe someone else can give you more details ...

steve-hosting36

We do, drop us a line if the domain is already with us.

forbairt

steve-hosting36 wrote:

We do, drop us a line if the domain is already with us.

Do you have details for this on your site ?

steve-hosting36

Unfortunately not at the moment, we've a major version release on Friday for our site and systems which should include more details. In the mean time, drop us a note for more.

forbairt

Cool ... I've no immediate need for it ... but can think of once or twice in the past I'd have liked to be able to do it

vigos

well I'd just like to involve spam mainly, one company offered it to me for free by saying they would put their details as the contact details instead. I didnt like the sound of this though.

Could they claim the domain name then?

forbairt

If the domain is in their name .. then yes they could ... unless you could prove in some way ... its yours ...

I believe in the case of .ie's .... its slightly more clearcut ... but if its a .com ... they could do with it what they wanted unless you decided to take it to the higher powers and even then ... it may not go in your favour ...

mneylon

There's a huge debate going on regarding whois at the moment

Most of the registrars are offering some form of whois "privacy", but in the aftermath of RegisterFly's implosion a lot of people are a bit uncomfortable about how the data is handled.

In any case:

IE domains - the only thing that appears in Whois is your name. No other contact details are visible

co.uk - if you're a private individual you can "opt out", so only your name is shown.

eu - the standard whois only shows if the domain is registered or not and which nameservers it's using. To see more details you'd have to go to the website http://www.whois.eu and private individuals can opt out (this is due to EU privacy laws)

.com/net/org/info/biz - some of the registrars offer the "privacy" option as a free addon, others charge for it.

WPI20000

vigos wrote:

Is there anyway to hide your contact details from the whois database if you register a name?

If so do any companies in Ireland offer this?

There's a service in the States that do it. Domains by Proxy.

forbairt

WPI20000 wrote:

There's a service in the States that do it. Domains by Proxy.

second post on the thread

WPI20000

forbairt wrote:

second post on the thread

Sorry.

vigos

ok thanks for the answers I will check out the prices from the different companies and see if its worth.

I will be registering a .com name for a club. Just out of curiosity do you really get much spam if contact details are in the whois database?

forbairt

it starts to add up over time ... using your generic info@website email addresses are automatic targets for spam once your domain name gets out there a bit ...

mneylon

vigos wrote:

ok thanks for the answers I will check out the prices from the different companies and see if its worth.

I will be registering a .com name for a club. Just out of curiosity do you really get much spam if contact details are in the whois database?

No.

I don't hide my details on any of my .com registrations and I don't have any serious issues

If you don't use webmaster@ info@ or sales@ you will avoid a lot of junk

forbairt

blacknight wrote:

No.

I don't hide my details on any of my .com registrations and I don't have any serious issues

If you don't use webmaster@ info@ or sales@ you will avoid a lot of junk

also avoid a catchall account

I find I get about 5 - 20 a day ... most are caught by spam filters