Domain Registrars Who Respect Privacy WHOIS & Free Speech?

Macko · Jan 20, 2018

Hello all.

Your community forum keeps coming up when I search for this, so I thought this would be the best place to ask my specific questions.

Background story: I run a site that covers news and discussions for expats, and we often have stories/articles/posts about expats behaving badly in Asia. From time to time we get complaints from individuals who want us to take down newsworthy stories that mention them, and it's never been a problem, until recently.

I have the privacy feature turned on, so the WHOIS info just states the registrar's info, with their info to use to contact the reseller for abuse complaints. The registrar received a BASELESS cease and desist request, and they in turn forwarded it to the reseller, who is supposed to forward it to me, but the reseller's email bounced...

Out of the blue our site was offline. I contacted the reseller, then referred me to the Registrar, who explained the whole goof up. They told us to take down the content to get our account unsuspended, and given no other option, we deleted the link.

The biggest issue I have is that the cease and desist is completely baseless, as it admitted the story was true, agreed it was newsworthy 'at the time,' but now it has been several months so he feels it should be taken down. On top of that they claimed we posted the guy's passport number, and that is ENTIRELY false.

The Registrar says they are in he UK, so it doesn't matter if the story is true or false or whatever, there is a UK law called 'the right to be forgotten' so they will get us to delete ANYTHING if someone complains, or hand over my information to them.

They say that since their name is on the WHOIS info, the privacy service that I pay them for, they are the ones liable, so they don't get involved and will always give me 48 hours to remove the content.

To me, that is insane.

I have no issue at all if demand we take it down or hand over my info because of an injunction or other legal order, but it is rediculous if they will comply with ANY request to delete something, even if they know it has no legal basis whatsoever.

The other weird thing is that they say they don't want to get involved over 'content,' as that is for the host to do, but they clearly do get involved.

So, my question to you guys is who is a good Registrar that will offer me privacy and not hand over my info unless there is a court order or some other legal requirement?

I have narrowed down my search to UniRegistery, DirectNIC, Hover or maybe even GKG.

Uniregistry is in the Cayman Islands, Direct NIC and GKG are in the US and Hover is in Canada. I would prefer a Registrar in the US, as I am American and our hosting company is American, so I feel that would probably be ideal, as US law is what we are more than happy to comply with.

Are there good Registars who will only hand over your info or take any action if they receive an actual court order or something? I have no issue in that case, but for my current Registar's policy to be to just give us 48 hours to remove something or else, just isn't feasible for my site which published newsworthy stories that people might not want to be in.

So if any of you have suggestions for a domain name Registrar who will not just comply to ever willy nilly cease and desist letter that anyone can write, I would appreciate it very much. I narrowed it down to those 4 Registars above, but I am not really familiar with all this, so would like to hear from people with more experience dealing with these things.

Thanks in advance.

Kate · Jan 20, 2018

One possible example:

Code:

Domain Name: WIKILEAKS.ORG
Registry Domain ID: D130035267-LROR
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.dynadot.com
Registrar URL: http://www.dynadot.com
Updated Date: 2017-08-31T15:01:04Z
Creation Date: 2006-10-04T05:54:19Z
Registry Expiry Date: 2018-10-04T05:54:19Z
Registrar Registration Expiration Date:
Registrar: Dynadot, LLC

Just curious, what is the registrar ? And I would strongly advise against using a reseller, maintain your names with an accredited registrar. Also keep in mind that complaints will probably be sent more often to the webhost, than the registrar. So the webhost has to be solid enough.
Of course the webhost shouldn't be your registrar. Spread the risk.

JohnnyNight · Jan 20, 2018

Well, if you move to another registrar you have no assurance the same thing won't happen..

If one registrar responded in the way they did there must be some legal issue that concerns them and the chance is very good another registrar will do the same thing..

Nobody likes lawsuits and that's the prospect the registrar feel they faced..

So I would really just let this go and forget about it..

Life is too valuable to waste your time on this..

Macko · Jan 20, 2018

Kate said:
Just curious, what is the registrar ? And I would strongly advise against using a reseller, maintain your names with an accredited registrar. Also keep in mind that complaints will probably be sent more often to the webhost, than the registrar. So the webhost has to be solid enough.
Of course the webhost shouldn't be your registrar. Spread the risk.

I will be glad to give all the specifics once I get over to a new one. I hope you understand.

Yes, we more often get them from the webhost, but they just forward them to us and say deal with it, which I think is fair, as anyone who really thinks they really have a legal reason to get something taken offline should go through the proper channels if they so choose, but we are very careful to make sure we follow the laws in the US.

Yes, different hosting from our registrar.

The company you mentioned looks good, and they even say this:

"Transferring a private domain to Dynadot is also easy! You'll see a checkbox to add domain privacy right on our transfer page. Simply enter in the domain you'd like to transfer, add the authorization code, check the box to add our domain privacy service, and hit the transfer button."

They make it seem like I am able to transfer a PRIVATE domain. Most people seem to say you need to turn off PRIVACY during the whole process, but do others have experience doing a transfer without turning off privacy?

All the registrars I called said I need to turn it off to transfer it, but I asked a few 'why?' and they said it was so that I can receive the confirmation email. I asked if I would be able to turn it off for just a few minutes to receive the email at MY email, and 2 registrars said it 'should' work, and another one said it 'will' work, and a few said it won't work like that and it needs to have the privacy disabled through the entire process.

Who to trust, lol?

Macko · Jan 20, 2018

JohnnyNight said:
Well, if you move to another registrar you have no assurance the same thing won't happen..

If one registrar responded in the way they did there must be some legal issue that concerns them and the chance is very good another registrar will do the same thing..

Nobody likes lawsuits and that's the prospect the registrar feel they faced..

So I would really just let this go and forget about it..

Life is too valuable to waste your time on this..

Correct, no guaranteed assurance. However, I have already been offline because the reseller's email bounced, which is probably a sign that I should move on.

Again, they quoted a UK law 'the right to be forgotten' as kind of the reason why they don't care if the content is true or false, and I can't imagine being told that from a US company. Besides, I assume that as long as they gave me up with some sort of court order that they wouldn't ever risk the chance of being sued. We are talking about the domain registrar, not the hosting company, so I assumed they wouldn't get involved like this ever, unless something was obviously illegal or something.

Even the registrar said that they told the person complaining that they should really be talking to the hosting company, but then they also went and got involved with giving us an ultimatum.

I guess it's possible that they would have normally done what the hosting company does and just want a response from us telling them that we will reach out to the person complaining, but since the reseller's email bounced, we never even had the time to be notified about it at all.

Well, as far as I know, I can register this for the next 10 years, so I'm not wasting too much of my short life on it. If this were a yearly occurrence I would probably just say to hell with it and get rid of the privacy, but I assume having the privacy on there makes people a lot less likely to send baseless cease and desist letters. I have always told senders of those that we won't be deleting anything as it's all newsworthy and if they feel I am wrong about this then they can use the legal system to help us deal with it. That's always the last we hear of it.

So, does anyone know of a registrar who will ignore all baseless cease and desist letters until they are at least presented with an injunction as opposed to a letter than anyone can write or pay a cheap lawyer to write in order to pressure us to remove something that has every legal right to be online? Either way we should probably get away from the specific reseller as Kate suggested, because it's hard to have faith in a company who's important emails bounce, thus causing us to be offline for several hours because we never received any warning or anything.

Anyone know the chances of a transfer going through if I only take off the privacy for a few minutes to receive the confirmation email, and then turn it back on?

Thanks for two very helpful comments from this community already.

Kate · Jan 20, 2018

Macko said:
They make it seem like I am able to transfer a PRIVATE domain. Most people seem to say you need to turn off PRIVACY during the whole process, but do others have experience doing a transfer without turning off privacy?

As long as the E-mail address listed in the whois record forwards to your regular E-mail, you will receive the transfer authorization mail. It depends on which privacy scheme you are using. For instance some registrars might put an E-mail of their own in the whois record, with no forwarding. It's a convenient retention tool too

Arca · Jan 20, 2018

I have not tried them personally (as I've not had the need for extreme levels of domain ownership privacy), but look into njal.la.

They were founded solely to provide true anonymity and privacy protection and they are operated by internet activists.

Mainstream registrars have a bad track record of not respecting WHOIS privacy and free speech, so I wouldn't trust any of them in that aspect (even those I fully trust with my domain investing business).

Macko · Jan 20, 2018

Arca said:
I have not tried them personally (as I've not had the need for extreme levels of domain ownership privacy), but look into [I had to remove because I can't post links.]

They were founded solely to provide true anonymity and privacy protection and they are operated by internet activists.

Mainstream registrars have a bad track record of not respecting WHOIS privacy and free speech, so I wouldn't trust any of them in that aspect (even those I fully trust with my domain investing business).

I notice that they are not ICANN approved. Does that matter?

They also make it clear that THEY own your domain, not you, but you have the right to do with their domain as you want. That sounds like it could be a huge headache later down the road, but I don't know.

Thanks for the idea though, just not sure it would seem like a good idea to do that.

Macko · Jan 20, 2018

Kate said:
As long as the E-mail address listed in the whois record forwards to your regular E-mail, you will receive the transfer authorization mail. It depends on which privacy scheme you are using. For instance some registrars might put an E-mail of their own in the whois record, with no forwarding. It's a convenient retention tool too

Thanks, that's good to hear! And no, I don't receive automated forwarded emails, unfortunately, so that's why I'll at least have to turn it off for a few mins...

Thanks.

Arca · Jan 20, 2018

Macko said:
They also make it clear that THEY own your domain, not you, but you have the right to do with their domain as you want.

That's how you're fully protected. There is no "you" to uncover behind the WHOIS privacy.

I fully understand your reservations though. Your need might not be extreme enough to justify the drawbacks of their system.

Arca · Jan 20, 2018

Also, one company I've not tried, but heard of many times is PRQ - They're a hosting company with a similar MO to Njalla.

Macko · Jan 21, 2018

Arca said:
That's how you're fully protected. There is no "you" to uncover behind the WHOIS privacy.

I fully understand your reservations though. Your need might not be extreme enough to justify the drawbacks of their system.

Arca said:
Also, one company I've not tried, but heard of many times is PRQ - They're a hosting company with a similar MO to Njalla.

Thanks for yet another very helpful idea.

But yeah, I don't feel like I need to go through any extremes like that, as I assume that since they are not ICANN approved I'm taking a bigger chance than normal of losing my domain, although I don't think that is their intentions or anything, as I know nothing about them.

That's the thing, I'm willing to go to court over our content (if someone really wanted to go that far), as I feel confident we are not breaking any rules or anything, but I also don't want to be so easily contacted/harassed over baseless complaints.

Imagine if you had your full name, home address, email and even your phone number attached to EVERY post on here? While I might have no legal means to get you to change your innocent posts, it opens up an easy route to harass you over it. Just a random example of why I am personally interested in keeping my domain registrar info private if I can.

So, it looks like I will likely go with one of the 3 or 4 registrars that I mentioned earlier, as they are all ICANN registered and in the US/Canada/Cayman Islands (although the Cayman Islands one seems to be owned by a well-known guy from the US who won't do a runner with my domain, lol).

I guess I can always TRY the transfer with the whois privacy on after I get the email, and if that fails for some reason, I can try it again with it off.

Kate · Jan 21, 2018

Just make sure the registrant E-mail address listed in the whois records is forwarding mail to you. Send a test E-mail. If it doesn't work you need to figure out how that whois privacy is configured and fix it. And whatever you do, it may be a good idea to whitelist a few senders like your registrar, to make sure you won't miss out important notifications.

Dynadot · Jan 26, 2018

Macko said:
"Transferring a private domain to Dynadot is also easy! You'll see a checkbox to add domain privacy right on our transfer page. Simply enter in the domain you'd like to transfer, add the authorization code, check the box to add our domain privacy service, and hit the transfer button."

They make it seem like I am able to transfer a PRIVATE domain. Most people seem to say you need to turn off PRIVACY during the whole process, but do others have experience doing a transfer without turning off privacy?

That text you are quoting is basically just saying you can add privacy to your domain at checkout. Whether you can transfer a private domain or not (without turning off the privacy) is up to the losing Registrar. If they forward emails to you, then you are good to go without turning it off. If the private email address bounces, then you'll have to turn the privacy off

As it is, without knowing what was on the page in question and taking you at your word, it would seem unlikely we'd disable the domain in this case, for a few reasons I won't really get into, other than to say that if the domain isn't hosted with us, we rarely take action on a sites content (phishing might be an exception).

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