There are many benefits to keeping your Whois information public.
GDPR has been in effect for a few months now and the impact on the domain name industry has been huge. The biggest impact is with Whois; many major domain name registrars are now masking all Whois data.
There are some benefits to this, including reduced spam and telemarketing calls. But domain name owners should probably do what’s necessary to keep their Whois information public. Here’s why:
1. Fewer UDRP/legal actions
A consequence of masked Whois is that companies that consider filing a UDRP or legal action no longer know who they’re filing against. WIPO has changed its process so that it informs the Complainant about who the owner is and then lets the complainant amend their complaint.
There are some problems with this. One is that if it’s obvious that you have rights or legitimate interests in the domain name (e.g. it matches your last name), the Complainant might ordinarily not file the complaint. But once they file, will they actually decide at this point to withdraw the complaint?
This is less of an issue for domain investors than smaller domain owners/businesses. But for domain investors, this still creates a problem. Owning a domain as an investment can establish a legitimate interest in a domain name.
A Complainant might think twice when seeing who owns a domain name. For example, a smart Complainant will carefully consider its options if it knows a domain is registered by Frank Schilling’s company. They know he will fight back (even beyond UDRP if necessary). I have no doubt that some companies decide not to pursue a case because he owns the domain.
Also, keep in mind that some registrars don’t even have masked email forwarding addresses in Whois. If there’s an issue that can easily be cleared up through communication prior to getting to a UDRP or lawsuit, there’s simply no way for the other party to contact you.
2. More sales contacts
Domain purchase inquiries come from various sources: parked page landers, marketplaces, and Whois. Most of the large sales and purchases I make start with an email or phone contact.
3. A clear, public ownership record
Public Whois also creates a public record of domain name ownership that can be valuable in disputes.
How you can make your Whois public
There are two ways to make your Whois public.
One is to choose a domain name registrar that still publishes Whois info for non-EU residents. The biggest example is GoDaddy.
The second is to ask your registrar to make your Whois information public. The ICANN temporary Whois specification requires registrars to make this an option “as soon as commercially reasonable”. I’m not sure how difficult this is, but I would push your domain registrar if they deny your request.
For anyone not living in the 1st World, whois privacy is a must have. Even a few thousand USD publicly reported sale with data about your home address being accessible (and possibly easily searchable through constantly growing number of various data miners) may become a health/life threat.
That’s something I’ve never thought about. Thanks for sharing.
Shared office space available in your country?
Use that address on your whois with mail forwarding. The benefit is that you are now advertising your business in the Whois record vs constantly advertising for your Registrar.
Remember that flashing a $1,000 phone, ipad, computer bag, jewelry, as you walk down the street makes you a target everywhere! Does anyone wear jewelry anymore? Not me. Don’t own any.
Be safe people.
Last time I checked, enom requires hidden whois even though the domain owner is in the U.S.
There was discussion that the domain owner could opt out. But, I haven’t heard anymore about it. That is why I am slowly removing my domains from enom. (because they make it difficult to transfer out.) Also because enom renewal cost are extremely high. I feel enom is eventually putting themselves out of business.
People need the option to exercise their own discretion. That’s why still not having whois privacy for .us after over 16 years is incredible.
But you guys don’t care about .us, so…
Almost all accredited registrars offer privacy as part of their domain services. Some charge for this service and some don’t, but it is available if you are concerned that your information when it is public can cause any problem for you. For the rest, however, the whois serves as a method of communication if you wish to reach an owner of a domain name you want to buy or to warn other parties that a certain domain owner is using it for an illegal purpose. The only registrars I know that adhere to the European court regarding GDPR are ENOM and TUCOWS, which I do not believe is helping them or their stockholders in any way. Having the facility to NOT protect your whois information is a must for all of us. It should be by choice, not enforced regardless of what is beneficial to you.
I am from the EU and the happy GDPR would not have entered into force because of Facebook etc by providing data from the accounts of its millions of users, in the proportion of the spam that we still receive and it is a very profitable business.
The same as the sale of Whois public user data, I receive every purchase of registered domain, expired etc emails Congratulations on the purchase of this domain, or hundreds of web designers and applications send emails for the same domain or others new, before receiving nothing and I am a domainer since 2010 in the US market.
The Whois control is public level and it is very good like that, for the reasons that many of you give, but what consequences it can bring if there is not a tangible system of security so that a loss of domain names of the same registrars does not occur, as it happened in registers known by all of us and without being able to recover any, because their security systems are obsolete or without knowing us a hidden sale to give many millions of dollars, it is a big market where nowadays security comes first, not in texts in tools.
1. What makes you think that privacy will reduce domain hijacking? I am more worried about it now than in years past.
2. Over the past couple years, there has been a drastic reduction in phone calls and emails from web designers, domain sellers, etc. 10-15 yrs ago, I use to receive a lot of phone calls and emails. The few I receive now is minor.
While I don’t quite understand joesaba2014’s comment, regarding domain hijacking I think it can be a benefit and a drawback.
From a benefit perspective, if the thief doesn’t know who owns a valuable domain and the email tied to their account (typically what’s in Whois) then it’s harder for them to target the domain owner.
On the other hand, once it’s stolen it’s more difficult to figure out who stole it (even if they use fake info, which is often repeated) and there’s no public historical record of ownership.
4 years into that business, I never ever made a sale through direct enquiry done using my whois data. I got few mails but never had any response once replied. However, I had endless calls and emails to sell me crappy webdesign services.
Quick question: can I put a premium number on my whois record? I guess a potential buyer won’t mind paying $2 on a call to reach me, but I wonder whether it’s legal.
In that case, I’ll be happily answering all the calls and engage in passionate conversations each time and make a fortune that will replace the lost parking revenues.
Strangely no one ever used the snail mail address to reach out with me. Maybe that’s the least risky, unless we fear identity theft.
If you want to experience unprecedented level of whois spam, just register a domain in the TLD .business.
Instead of hiding or showing it, we should reform this obsolete system and allow social media handouts and use identity certification services as middle man.
Note: Since the GDPR came to bring peace on my email and phone number, I noticed a steady increase of ‘contact form spam’ on each website I control that have a contact form. For one of them it reached a point it blew off the MySQL database leading to the site to crash.
We’ll never be quiet…