PSA: DomainMonster.com - Dubious Whois privacy (?)

[domino66]

DomainMonster offered free whois privacy so gave them a shot, but 2 of their policies struck me as very odd...are the 2 things below as non-standard as I think they are?

1) When you register a new DN or transfer one from a different registrar, you CANNOT auto-enable Whois privacy...you have to turn it on manually only after the transaction is processed. Every other registrar I use has a simple setting that says "enable WHOIS Privacy by default", meaning it's enabled from the moment I buy/transfer a DN. What this means is that the WHOIS database is populated with your real info (even if only briefly...but that's still a concern since bots are continuously crawling/indexing the DB)

2) They don't offer forwarding from the private email address they use to populate the WHOIS info after you enable privacy. e.g. your WHOIS email shows as [email protected] -- but there's no option in the dashboard to have email sent to that address forwarded anywhere (WTF?) I called to ask, and the rep very matter-of-factly said that they don't offer it, but that if someone contacted them (presumably through their regular support@ email address), they'd "get the message to me". WTF? He wasn't able to really elaborate on just HOW they'd "get it to me". But again: completely nonstandard, given my experience.

I'm still a relative novice, but are the 2 items above as strange as they seemed to me?

 

[-Adam-]

With regards to #2 I once contacted a user who had a special privacy enabled that didn't auto forward.

I sent an inquiry email and then several hours later received back another email from the registrar stating that they will attempt to contact the owner and should the owner be interested they would pass along my information to allow him to contact me directly.

So I am only assuming they provide a similar service.

 

[FPForum]

Well..

1) I've never heard of a registrar doing that either..it's always added during checkout..

2) I've seen other registrars do that before with private whois..It isn't as nice as DomainsbyProxy and some of the others where the email will actually reach you..But I have seen registrars do this kind of thing before..

Hope this helps.