WHOIS privacy

I saw that the WHOIS privacy section on the hosting features page mentioned hiding one's e-mail and phone number, but does it hide your name as well? Thanks.

Basically when you do a whois on the domain it shows dreamhosts info (they get any contacts from it including any complaints.) You can if you want change it to show your own info. Remember that whois info has to show correct contact details.

Anything that comes in to dreamhost they will deal with or pass on to you.

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they get any contacts from it including any complaints.

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Actually, the email forwards to you and they trash written correspondence sent by mail. The phone number is just a recording that says to email you.

Remember that many registrars charge $20+/year for protection service when you're looking at that $6.95 registration.

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All of this is very interesting, but I was just wondering about one thing. Since the registration with privacy option effectively lists Dreamhost in your place doesn't that legally make them the owner of the lease for the domain?

No, it does not.

OK, that's good. I just wonder why many registrars don't offer this privacy option then.

Edited by ashleykaryl on 07/28/07 08:33 AM (server time).

Actually quite a lot of registrars do offer this, it's basically a standard option. As above, some places to charge extra for it, and others have funny "creative" names for it - but it's still fairly common place.



--Matttail
art.googlies.net - personal website

I am based in the UK and I looked around for one yesterday but had no luck. In the past I tried registering a couple of domains at GoDaddy. The suggestions facility for names is very useful, but I found the actual buying process a pain, so now I go there to decide on a name and then race over to register it at Dreamhost!

Yeah, and a lot of them charge extra for it. I'd guess that in this day and age, it would almost be a required feature. What major registrar doesn't offer it?

BTW, your concerns about domain privacy aren't totally unfounded. Even though the registrar only puts their contact information in the whois database, your registrar is the only source of information that directly connects the real you to domain. It's not like there's an external database that holds the private registration information.

The problem has rears its ugly head in situations like Registerfly where people had problems transferring their registration once Registerfly went under - or during the period where service went down the toilet. The problem being that the registrar is the only repository of the real domain ownership information. Of course, the Registerfly situation was interesting because in the case of some TLDs like .COM and .NET, the registry doesn't actually hold the primary whois info anyway - it's all held at the registrar! So if you don't trust your registrar you're going to be in trouble regardless of whether you use privacy or not.

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The suggestions facility for names is very useful, but I found the actual buying process a pain, so now I go there to decide on a name and then race over to register it at Dreamhost!

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LOL! I do the same thing with my other host, BlueHost. I think I'm going to add in a suggestion for this.

Agreed. I go to enom for suggestions and buy from DH :)