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.
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.