Company sues NameCheap after it doesn’t disclose identity behind protected whois.

I’ve said it many times and I’ll say it again — offering whois privacy and proxy services is not free for domain name registrars.

Here’s another example. Emergency Essentials, Inc, which caters to end-of-the-worlders by selling emergency and food kits, has sued NameCheap over a domain name registered using its WhoisGuard service (pdf).

It’s common for someone to name a domain name registrar or whois privacy service in a lawsuit as a way to get the actual registrant disclosed. That might be all that Emergency Essentials wants here regarding the domain name theemergencyessentials.com.

But the plaintiff claims that WhoisGuard was not responsive to its earlier inquiries. It faxed and mailed a cease and desist letter to the whois privacy address in January. The fax was allegedly delivered but the certified letter was returned undeliverable. No one responded to the letters.

Then in March Emergency Essentials sent a cease & desist letter directly to NameCheap.

In its suit, Emergency Essentials writes:

As of the filing of the present litigation, WhoisGuard had failed to identify any other owner of the website. Therefore, WhoisGuard is responsible for the content of the website

The company also named web host BlueHost in its complaint.

Responding to the suit won’t be free. And thus, providing whois privacy services isn’t free.