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Redacted Whois at GoDaddy: a revenue hit but better customer experience

by — Domain Registrars 12 Comments

Privacy laws and bad customer experience are forcing GoDaddy to rethink a cash cow.

The word WHOIS in blue and yellow letters on black background

Last Friday, Elliot Silver broke the news that GoDaddy is planning to limit personal information in Whois records starting later this year.

GoDaddy is the largest domain name registrar in the world, and also one of the few large registrars that still shows personal information in Whois. Most stopped showing this information, such as email addresses and phone numbers, after GDPR went into effect. GoDaddy decided to only redact personal information for people in the European Union, for which GDPR applies.

I wasn’t surprised that GoDaddy held out for so long. GoDaddy’s Domains By Proxy product is a cash cow. Security company DomainTools ran a quick search for Domain Name Wire using “Domains By Proxy, LLC” and discovered 18 million Whois records. The actual number could be lower or higher given this crude search, but it gives an order of magnitude. (GoDaddy declined to comment on the number for this story.)

At $10 per year, that’s $180 million in annual revenue at nearly 100% margin.

That’s a lot of revenue and profit to give up. But changing privacy laws and customer experience have forced GoDaddy to take action.

Privacy laws are springing up all around the world, including the California Consumer Privacy Act.

And by keeping Whois information public, GoDaddy provided a lousy customer experience. Customers are inundated with telemarketing calls and spam after registering domain names. Many of the callers pretend to be GoDaddy offering additional services.

I recently registered a handful of domains for a friend and added Whois privacy on each registration to avoid the hassle. It stung a bit because the privacy service cost more than the domains.

After one recent experience dealing with a deluge of robocalls after registering a domain, I decided that it might be worth it—even in my unique position—for GoDaddy to begin blocking Whois information.

In my unique position, the downside of private information is that it’s harder to research the owners of domains for stories. This includes investigative stories, end user reports, and more. As a domain investor, I can’t verify ownership of domain names. There are downsides to no Whois and I’ve felt the sting of it over the past couple of years.

It will be interesting to see if GoDaddy retains some sort of “Domains by Proxy lite” service that blocks whatever information Whois records still display, or offers some sort of additional value to users. Such a product might also justify not refunding customers for previous Domains by Proxy purchases.

Either way, GoDaddy is going to have to manage the financial hit that this is sure to cause.

Lawsuit: cybersquatters tried to dupe suppliers out of $60,000+ of merchandise

by — Policy & Law 1 Comment

W. W. Williams says fraudsters uses domain name to try to trick suppliers to send merchandise.

Usually when a cybersquatter grabs a domain similar to a company’s name, the cybersquatter just hopes to make a few bucks from a parked page.

But sometimes the perpetrator has much more nefarious plans.

W.W. Williams, which provides services and products to industrial companies, alleges that’s the case with the registrant of WWWilliamsInc.com.

The company uses the domain WWWilliams.com; the alleged cybersquatter merely added “inc” to the end.

According to a lawsuit (pdf) the company filed in U.S. District Court in Ohio on Friday, the registrant of the domain tried to pull off a sophisticated fraud of W.W. Williams’ suppliers.

W. W. Williams claims the registrant had a scheme that went like this:

1. establish customer accounts and credit terms with suppliers by posing as W.W. Williams
2. the suppliers would ship the merchandise to the address provided by the defendants
3. not pay for the merchandise
4. the suppliers, believing the the orders had been placed by W. W. Williams would then seek payment for the merchandise from the company

The lawsuit included some examples of the fraudulent purchase orders (pdf) including various shipping addresses. One purchase order is for what appears to be $20,000 worth of wireless microphones. Another is for $40,000 worth of portable gas monitors.

WWWilliamsInc.com was registered on March 7 to someone using Go Daddy’s Domains by Proxy service. W. W. Williams says it contacted Domains by Proxy multiple times, but the whois proxy service declined to give out the registrant’s information. However, emails from Domains by Proxy that are included in the lawsuit show that the service said it would move to unmask the owner’s information if the customer did not respond by March 28. The lawsuit was filed March 29 against Domains by Proxy and the whois record on the domain now shows the registrant, so I’m not sure why W. W. Williams filed the lawsuit the day it should have received the whois information.

Whois shows the domain is registered to a Scottsdale man, although it’s possible the information is incorrect.

You would think that this scheme would be difficult to pull off. Not only does W. W. Williams have the shipping addresses for the merchandise, but it would be difficult to move this sort of volume of merchandise on a black market. Perhaps the perpetrator just wanted to defraud the companies without benefiting itself in a financial way?

Domain Name Whois Privacy Has Its Limits

by — Services 3 Comments

Complete anonymity isn’t guaranteed with whois privacy services.

Using a whois privacy or proxy service to register and set up a gripe site? Or perhaps some other web site or domain you don’t want attached to your name? Be prepared for the potential that your information will be disclosed.

There are two types of whois security services: privacy and proxy. A privacy service generally shows your name but includes a service’s address, phone, and email. With a proxy service, the service usually registers the domain name on your behalf and then licenses the use of the domain to you. The preliminary results of a whois privacy study released last year (pdf) show that as many as 25% of domain names use some sort of whois identity protection service.

When someone files a complaint, be it law enforcement or a UDRP, the proxy service doesn’t want to be stuck holding the bag.

Consider the most popular service, Go Daddy Group’s Domains by Proxy (DBP). If someone files a UDRP against a domain name that uses DBP, the service changes the whois to reflect the owner’s true identity. Kelly Lewis, Deputy General Counsel for Domains by Proxy, explained to Domain Name Wire:

DBP provides privacy services for millions of domain names, and it takes the protection of its customers’ information very seriously. As a proxy service, DBP substitutes its name and contact information in the whois database in place of the customer’s information, thereby providing privacy. In disputes under the UDRP, however, the registrar is required to provide a verification of the registrant and the registrant’s contact information. This allows the customer to defend his or her interest in the domain name. Before the registrar can make that verification, it is necessary that the privacy services be temporarily terminated so that the verification process can be completed and dispute resolved. If the customer prevails in the UDRP proceeding, the customer can then have privacy services reinstated.

Of course, if you signed up for the proxy service to protect your identity, all another party needs to do is file a UDRP to unmask it. Sometimes the respondent prevails. If the respondent wins, DBP will reinstate the whois proxy information at no charge upon request. But the information has already been disclosed.

Many, but not all, proxy services provide contact information to UDRP providers upon the filing of a case. Registrants should be aware of what proxy and privacy services are as well as their limitations.

And remember, nothing is completely anonymous.

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