How do whois privacy services respond to requests to reveal owner information?
The Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) has asked ICANN to consider the cost and feasibility of extended whois studies. ICANN has already undertaken studies to determine what percentage of whois records are accurate. The next study is to see how whois privacy and whois proxy services respond to requests to reveal the actual owner of domain names.
The study would involve working with individuals, businesses, first responders, complaint centers, and law enforcement that have made requests to whois services to reveal or relay information to the actual registrant.
For each submitted request, researchers will then solicit secondary input from the associated Privacy/Proxy service provider and Registrar to determine if the request was received, relayed, responded to, or otherwise acted upon.
This may be a challenge. I suspect the services that easily hand information over to requesters will cooperate; those that don’t want respond to the query from the researchers.
Good Job ICANN is on the Ball 🙂
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This study demonstrates an interesting asymmetry. ICANN will be determining whether the services are refusing to identify the registrant under criteria which ICANN deems appropriate for such identification.
ICANN will not be measuring which services reveal identity under circumstances where it is inappropriate.
Those are two different measurements. It would be worthwhile to know if anyone is charging for a “privacy service” in which they reveal registrant identity to anyone who inquires for any reason. That, of course, would be valuable information for consumers of domain name services. As there is no such constituency in ICANN, the very thought of that measurement wouldn’t even occur to them.
Network Solution charges you for their privacy service and then report your identity as the registrant of the domain in the WHOIS database.
From their site: “Benefits of Private Registration”
“For a small yearly fee, private domain registration* delivers benefits that pay off, including:
Control
Unlike other proxy services, you remain the registrant for the private domain name.”
Where is the privacy here? You are paying for the privacy service and they reveal your name? They are telling you you have “CONTROL” because you remain the registrant. This is an utter deception in my view.
@ Keith Greg – Network Solutions offers a privacy service, not a proxy service. In a privacy service you remain the registrant and they use an alternative email/address/phone. A proxy service can block all information, but you are technically not the registrant.
Andrew Allemann – I can sse how they are using these terms, but it’s deceptive in my view. Privacy in my view means all basic contact information including my name–actually, especially my name. This is not an unreasonable view. But NS (and others) get to define these terms anyway they want. When I initially purchased the “privacy” service my name was not listed. Now it is.