Whois info when registering a domain

[schnikies79]

Quickie..

I'm thinking about registering a domain for a personal website, along with stats for a gameserver I run. My question is, when someone does a whois on my domain, what will they be able to see? Name, address, phone, etc?

These are all personal details and not business things. I really don't want them out on the net and I don't want to be shady and lie.

Google hasn't been much help! :(

[burningcpu]

Address can be a PO box as long as you check it. I put my house number because I'm not really tripping about it. Phone number I put down as my pay per minute cell phone. I put my real name on there.

I just did a whois search on my wife's business website and it came up with all that info you listed.

You can pay for anonamizer services but I believe they are like $90 a year. The value I gave was hearsay from a thread I was reading on slashdot about this.

I'm pming you the whois page for my website. You can see the information it posts.

[burningcpu]

At the bottom of the linked page (http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum25/3548.htm), the following comment was made. I think he has some good advice and info in there.


As far as phone number, there are some pretty cheap numbers available which are intended for use with SIP phones. You don't actually have to have a SIP phone, though. They have voice mail which is activated if you don't have a SIP device connected or if it doesn't answer. Typically, the voice mails are delivered by email.

The cheapest one I know of where you get to choose the area code is $35/year. There's even one now that is free, but you don't get to choose the area code.

This way you can use a REAL phone number that is only used for this purpose. You can periodically check the voice mail in case some issue comes up that requires your attention. I wouldn't advise using fake information for anything, as there might be situations where you wouldn't be notified and wind-up losing your domain, wind up with an unnecessary lawsuit (say, a DMCA action), etc.

The contact information is there for a reason. Provide the contact information, but just don't provide contact information that will allow somebody to wake you up in the middle of the night or harrass you.

I think a real P.O. box is the best way to go for address. They can be hard to get, though, and there are typically backlogs. They are cheaper than "mailbox stores", and look more legitimate. I was going to go with a mailbox store, until I saw the prices and how, technically, letters need to be addressed.

The U.S. Postal Service officially requires this mail to be addressed PMB or "private mail box". No "Suite", etc.

I think the privacy services just look a bit too paranoid. They hint at "scam" to anybody checking out your site. On the other hand, lots of legitimate companies receive their mail through a real P.O. Box.

If you have a corporation, LLC, etc. use the name of the company. Otherwise, file an Assumed Name with your city or state.

I'm not sure if you technically have to have a person's name in the registrant and/or technical/admin contacts. But I see a lot of big companies that do not. They have something like "Domain Administrator", "Legal Department", "IT Administration", etc.

If you have more than a small handful of domains, a combination of a cheap voice mail number and a P.O. box will be cheaper than a privacy service.

If you are trying to keep it legit while staying under the radar, a $24 dollar a year PO box and a Boostmobile cell phone would get you by.

[DaveHCYJ]

Its way cheaper to just pay the extra fee to your domain register to make your registration anonymous.

For example Godaddy is 9 bucks per Year for the anonymous service.

FYI it is very common for people to mine whois data to spam you etc. I never pay for the anonymous service though, because I'm not really that concerned.

[Enablingwolf]

Tick off one person for the most minuscule of reasons. They got your numbers...

Just make sure the contact info is enough. To make sure to buffer yourself safely against the crazies on the web.

It is like publishing your phone number here and address... If your not willing to do that. Then look into anon ways.

My registrar [proxy contact info], is built in to my name lease(s). I've paid extra to keep it private before. I pay $11 a year for my names now.