Domain privacy without the headaches.

[Ronald Regging]

For those who have been following the whole RegisterFly fiasco, the idea of possibly not being able to prove ownership of a domain that uses privacy information has become very real. If the company decides to steal your domain, or completely blows itself up like RF did, you may find yourself in big trouble.

So I think I came up with the best solution, though I'd love to hear if anyone else has a better or cheaper way. This isn't rocket science, but maybe someone will find it useful.

Name: I haven't figured out a way to get around this one, but I'm not too concerned about my name personally, but if someone has an idea, please post it.

Address: You can usually get a post office box at your post office for something like $20 for 3 months.

Phone: I found that Skype.com offers SkypeIn, which allows you to receive incoming calls via the Skype program and includes free voicemail for $38 a year. (and you get your own phone #)

So basically for around $100 a year total, you can have nearly private Whois without any risk of losing ownership of your domains. Also you can use these details with all of your domains, so if you register a lot of domains within a year and opt-in to the privacy service, you may actually save money, depending on how many domains you register and whether or not you get free privacy.

 

[Kate]

It's probably the best combination IMO.
I find whois privacy too dangerous for big ticket domains.

 

[AzN]

PO Box for mail.
Skype or GrandCentral for phone.

That's all you need.

 

[xman]

The phone is actually a good idea. I have my PO Box for quite some time now. I guess the other advantage of having public whois is that if buyers are interested in your domain he/she can easily contact you.

Good post slipxaway

 

[IAmAllanShore]

Add on to your already existing vonage or other VOIP account for a "virtual" phone # - usually costs $2-$3 month that only works for incoming calls.
As far as the "name" goes - you can use an organization/company as the name (All the big guys do) so long as the organization is real. So for example, http://whois.domaintools.com/reason.com . Forming an LLC is easy, and well worth it on the privacy side of things.
-Allan :gl:

-Allan

 

[seeker]

it all sounds good. But if using a reputable registrar like Moniker, Enom...etc..., why would using their whois privacy be a problem?
The regfly problem was coming for years now. They had serious problems for soooo long, so it made sense not to use them.

 

[Dan]

Another WHOIS privacy problem that I just found out about is with GoDaddy. Apparently their system is pretty crappy, where they have to WHOIS a name and hope to find the user's email address to check out their account. They couldn't find out the user's account number because he had THEIR privacy on..

 

[xous]

I use the following:

Name: Small Business Name (DBA) $80/3 years CAD
Address: PO Box $105/year CAD
Phone: VOIP DID (Incoming number) $10/mo

 

[eyedomainous]

Another WHOIS privacy problem that I just found out about is with GoDaddy. Apparently their system is pretty crappy, where they have to WHOIS a name and hope to find the user's email address to check out their account. They couldn't find out the user's account number because he had THEIR privacy on..

Yep! the Godaddy system is pretty bad, by me. Seems I can't get my domain Out of privacy... because the password & username no longer works (though I wrote it down and have 2 backup lists that verify the same data... so it should work). The kicker, they claim they cannot reset the password or username because "its private", and run by a "seperate company"... so I just have to pay every year (2 years now). Customer service (cough, cough) is of No Help whatsoever. I think its a lousy way to bilk money from clients.

Another kicker is... the privacy system is not really private as the domain buyers data is monitered and recorded by search engines like Google AND there are advanced whois search methods that allow spammers, or whomever to search for all the domains a person owns. What A RIP!!

 

[Dan]

Name: Small Business Name (DBA) $80/3 years CAD
Address: PO Box $105/year CAD
Phone: VOIP DID (Incoming number) $10/mo

That's a little expensive just for some privacy where you aren't really that private.

I like the DNOA privacy + the DNOA email address.