Is private Whois really private?

[Joep]

I am about to launch a website but I want to stay completely out of sight.
So I am thinking of private Whois.
But is this really private?
Or are there ways to find out that I am the holder?
Your advise please.
Thanks!

 

[Damion]

1. Under legal pressure from certain government authorities the company that offers you the domain privacy service will give up your personal details.

2: If you host other websites on the same IP on domains without domain privacy and you are the only one hosting on that IP it's a possible way to find out your personal info. If you hide between other domains like a shared account you don't have much to worry about.

3: If you switch an old domain to domain privacy your personal details would still be retrievable.

 

[malcarada]

4. There is nothing stopping you from providing a PO Box for contact details. That could be your second line of defence if your whois privacy company gives you away.

 

[Traveler]

Just out of curiosity, what kind of site are planning on launching that you don't even want to be connected with it?

 

[mis_chiff]

Correct me if I'm wrong, and I very well could be :red:
but if it isin't already under whois privacy
any info already collected/stored/cached will still be available for anyone to see...

 

[Ms Domainer]

*

Actually, GoDaddy will sing even if there is a whiff of anything they don't like.

A threatening letter from a lawyer is enough for GD to release your information to whoever hires a lawyer to write a letter. There is no investigation or anything, just threat of a lawsuit.

So, no, don't expect Whois Privacy to protect you.

*

 

[gazzip]

Make sure the name is'nt registered at NetworkSolutions, their expensive whois privacy service still ends up showing your name...durrr ...that does'nt sound very private to me!



.

 

[RTM]

All agreed with above posts ; consider "private" whois a minor barrier against the most basic form of folks trying to find your contact. Do not think that a potential legal issue will be avoided (for long) by simply hiding behing a private whois.

It is decent to provide basic protection against casual whois surfers.

 

[Joep]

Thanks a lot for the advice people!
It is very helpful and I know what to do now.

 

[Gerrit]

I could be wrong so happily stand corrected if I indeed would be wrong ... but I heard that some tools offer, for a fee, access to private WHOIS. So if that is true, indeed the WHOIS only protects you from the basic surfer consulting a WHOIS website.

I would however not worry too much because (from my experience having worked for several IT orientated companies) the average internet user wouldn´t know how domain registrations work, let alone what a WHOIS database is.

And if you really are extremely careful about privacy (which I understand, hence why I have private WHOIS) then I suggest to use a PO Box or an alternative address with or without private WHOIS. A family member´s address will do the trick for example, or your work address maybe?

 

[Jeffrey]

I have a plan of putting a blog, and i'd like to be anonymous, so the best way to do make the whois private and not to put a link of the proposed site on my existing sites.

 

[werty]

There are ways to find email addresses even with a private Whois. It's just too time consuming and sometimes it's better to go with the next candidate or forget about the ones that are private (if you are marketing to end users for example). So yes, few people (ones that know or care) can get your email address but you will definitely get a lot of less unsolicited emails or spam (if you want to call it that way).

 

[angelahuang]

whois privacy

I am about to launch a website but I want to stay completely out of sight.
So I am thinking of private Whois.
But is this really private?
Or are there ways to find out that I am the holder?
Your advise please.
Thanks!

If you choose whois privacy, other people will not be able to find you. You can get this service for free from many registrar

 

[Joep]

The problem I am having with it: it's not 100% private (then again: what is?).
A person with knowledge will be able to retreive info.
That's what I wanted to know and learned from this thread.

 

[werty]

Well. Not 100% private but at least 90-95% private. Better than 100% public.

 

[CanSpace]

There's no real way for someone to find out who [email protected] really is. So yes I would say it's 100% private unless the registrar was subpoenad by the authorites or something. Regardless of how much 'knowledge' you have.

Bear in mind there are sites out there that maintain whois history... so people could see your 'old' whois information and it may be your real info...