I also voted if it was free, it can be quite costly on some registers but I think I would only need it on a few domains. One example I could use it on is a restaurant review site where it would be good to remain anonymous in case a restaurant owner doesn't agree to my review and gets offended.

On this subject, how do people who own lots of domains/sites deal with the idea that Google will penalize people who own quite a few domains/sites and so the rankings go down? I'm not sure if this is true or not.

I've never heard that, wouldn't Google see the anonymous whois service as a single entity owning millions of domains and penalize everyone who uses it?

I doubt it, I don't see the correlation, people with lots of domains have most of them parked, and parked domains don't rank particularly high to start with, and Google isn't going to cross reference the whois from the billions of sites in their index. It wouldn't make sense for them to penalize my relatively few developed sites because I have many parked domains.

If anything I can see this applying to adsense spammers who make adsense sites by the thousands with automated content. That would make sense.

i will use if it is free :p

if i want to sell domain i wont use privacy

Originally Posted by accentnepal

To add a bit of detail: When the feces hit the rotary device concerning registerfly, a registrar that was taking people's money but not buying/renewing/transfering the domains, after a great deal of stalling and blame shifting, ICANN(t) tried to get the master list of domains held by Registerfly. Apparently some domain owners who used privacy were not listed and lost their domains. BTW Registerfly is still in business, last time I checked. Whois is spam bait, but I am surprised how little I get from that source. I occasionally get a excited snail mail letter telling me that I need to renew and that this company will kindly do the honor for me for $60. - -I do not see how they can afford the stamps. I even got one spam letter that used the graphics from my little town's city hall envelopes - return address was different, they just stole the picture!

Hmm I thought that situation was cleared up. have to look into that sometime.


I prefer to use whois myself. Unless I was using a business address there is no way I would use my personal info on a website.

I don't use it and don't want to.

1. I have nothing to hide.
2. I as a buyer tend to not fully trust those who do use it, because I think they might have something to hide.
3. Spam from whois seems to have pretty much stopped or is at least being filtered really well.
4. I don't trust ANY registrar for complete control of who owns my domains.
5. I lost a couple domains due to renew notices not translating to my real email address several years ago.
6. I lost a couple domains at registerfly when they crossed up their database and put someone else's name on them when privacy was removed.
7. I almost lost a number of domains when RF automatically put privacy (I didn't notice it), and had to convince Enom with past email records that I was the rightful owner. It took several weeks, and some almost expired in the process.
8. I often get offers from the whois record.
9. I always verify the whois record with a whois inquiry when I get an offer, to make sure I still own the name. (I sometimes forget to remove sale listings)

I like it for sites I know that will get lots of traffic. Parked or reselling domains I dont care too much. Use name.com when I want private whois.

Moniker only charges $1.00 for this service. Unfortunately, this thread reminded me to test the emails out and I received Mail Delivery Subsystem mailer-daemon errors for the 2 domains I tested at random. I've asked support to look into it, and also asked if Moniker has ever researched the success rate of emails being delivered through this service. Would be interesting to see the statistics. Imagine if 1 out of every 100 emails got lost; assuming each of those "1's" are sales inquiries, that's a lot of money getting thrown away.

I will vote Yes, Paid Service, as I use a PO BOX for my whois. I guess this counts as my own privacy service? :p

Register at Name.com. Opened up an account there and it's fabulous - dirt cheap prices, free whois all day, easy to use, and simple format. I love that place. Ironically I started using it because I called Godaddy about trying to use a promo code on domains and the rep, Javier, acted like none of the promo codes off the web ever work. So I looked at name.com, which was cheaper even without the code, and have since spent $200 there and don't plan on looking back.

Anyways, back to whois. I actually like having it or at least the option to have it. I don't have a definitive answer other than the notion of privacy is shrinking more and more on the internet. In some circumstances, I don't mind having my name out there, but with the Internet you can't always control those circumstances.

If I can think of a better (or more specific) reason or copy someone elses better reason, I'll post it later.

Originally Posted by ProjectUnknown.com

I will vote Yes, Paid Service, as I use a PO BOX for my whois. I guess this counts as my own privacy service? :p

:)

I think it does.

-Steve

Looking for some more answers here folks!

Some great input thus far.

-Steve

Its not a huge issue for me, I would prefer not to have my home address and home phone revealed. I take the free privacy at name.com and also GoDaddy usually offers it for free when buying 5+ domains (but dont get caught on the expensive privacy renewals)

One of my .ca registrars added free privacy which I signed up for before reading the fine print, the shady company they have doing it will only pass on your email from a third party if that party sends a $10 certified cheque to them first. Great way to turn off potential buyers!

All this talk that if you use privacy services then people won't be able to reach you and balblabla..... there's a very simple solution.

1- Give your real info to the registrar for verification purposes and so-on.
2- MAKE ONLY YOUR CONTACT EMAIL PUBLIC.

People won't know where you live or won't be able to reach you by phone. They have the email, it should be enough to reach.

I'm sure registrar companies would not need geniuses to program that.

gr

Originally Posted by DomainRaiders.com

I would never use private registration because I want to be contacted about my domains.

So do I. :)

I use private registration on most of my domains and it doesn't stop people from contacting me. Just be sure the protected email reaches one you can monitor.

As an aside - CIRA is bringing in whois protection for all personal .ca holders on june 10 as a free service. You can opt out if you wish as well. They are following the Canadian privacy act which was amended not long ago. I think this is a great thing. You could buy whois protection for .ca domains before but it would still reveal your registrant name.

I find the I have nothing to hide approach a bit silly.
It is called Privacy, not Hidden services.
There are reasons there are many, many Privacy laws in the vast majority of Industrialized Western nations.
As for not getting emails, this has never happened to me. You can always try to email your private email and see if you get it.
As to losing the domain, that is BS. The regfly fiasco was a general disaster, and many people lost their domains regardless of privacy. Now if you use fake whois AND Privacy, then it is your fault. Fake whois is grounds for losing a domain in the first place.
There are soooo many advantages to Private whois, including an advantage against your competition in what you do own and what you do not. Remember, knowledge is power. The less your competition knows (in any field, or sub category of the domain business, including building sites), the less powerful they are over you.

I tend to try and keep my adult names private, I often take advantage of free private registration for this reason but I have purchased it in the past for adult domains that I have sites on. This is purely due to my non internet business - I don't want potential clients knowing I have an adult industry interest or my kids school friends and neighbors for that matter.
It is for this reason that I also use a mail box for business snail mail/affiliate checks etc.
For non adult I can take it or leave it - if its free I'll take it in the hopes that it cuts down on spam but after reading these posts I intend to check out the mail situation to make sure that if anyone is sending me offers I get them!

I see great minds think alike. :)
REP+

Originally Posted by seeker

I find the I have nothing to hide approach a bit silly. It is called Privacy, not Hidden services. There are reasons there are many, many Privacy laws in the vast majority of Industrialized Western nations. As for not getting emails, this has never happened to me. You can always try to email your private email and see if you get it. As to losing the domain, that is BS. The regfly fiasco was a general disaster, and many people lost their domains regardless of privacy. Now if you use fake whois AND Privacy, then it is your fault. Fake whois is grounds for losing a domain in the first place. There are soooo many advantages to Private whois, including an advantage against your competition in what you do own and what you do not. Remember, knowledge is power. The less your competition knows (in any field, or sub category of the domain business, including building sites), the less powerful they are over you.

I chose both free & paid. The privacy feature has been enabled for my websites and sites I plan to develop. I just don't want to deal with:

1 - Spam
2 - Identity theft
3 - People wanting mind my sites' business and check out my whois

I'm also under the assumption that having fake contact infos for your domains can get you into trouble (esp. because ICANN checks the info, don't they?) so I definitely feel that privacy feature is actually quite important.

When I used to register at Namecheap I'd use the free whois for a year, but I've never paid for it anywhere.
I'd like to use it for all my domains but can't justify the cost.

I would never use privacy. Like many of you stated "I have nothing to hide" - however this is a very dangerous statement. I dont have anything to hide in my house either, yet I'm not going to let any authority search it without a legal order to. I am a huge privacy advocate, and following the law. When you use "I have nothing to hide, search me" this is undermining the constitution (US) and other places. Letting people search you, scan at airports etc, because you have "nothing to hide" is just giving the man more power and control.

I personally have nothing to hide and you cannot search me. :eek:

Ok, but relating to domains: I voted no because everyone knows who you are, and unless a scammer, it's not that valuable. You are paying to show the world you don't own something when in fact you do own it. Hope you don't plan on selling your domains because no one will be able to find you. :o

My personal experience is only people who have domains they shouldn't have, or starting a company that rips people off, or extreamly rich people have privacy.

how the privacy of the system work?

I think identity theft could be a huge issue when your laying out so much information about yourself on the internet and it's available to everyone cost free.
The thing about it that bothers me is having my home address listed publicly, if your gonna send an offer for one of my domains by snail mail I'm not interested. I see the home address feature irrelevant for domain owners and it should be kept private.

very nice posting