discuss Will it be a doom if Whois disappears?

[Arpit131]

There have been some discussions going on as to hide the Whois data.
How do you think will it affect the outbound market for domainers?
How difficult do you think domaining will be if such a thing happens?

 

[Haykay2005]

Not at all. A landing page to receive inbound will solve the problem

 

[hxp]

Maybe not "doom", but It would certainly have an adverse effect.

A lot of times, WHOIS is the only way to get in direct touch with the owner/CEO of a company. Without it, it would take a lot more time/work to get the same result.

I think all tlds should adopt the .ca practice of hiding the registrants info, yet still having a contact form available. Like this: (https://services.cira.ca/agree/mdf/index.action). It's such a boon for all involved.

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

No any impact...
From my experience, under 10% of inquiries are coming via WHOIS...

Even positive effect from such change...
Because many buyers significantly lower their offers depending on the Seller's country...

 

[Jasonn]

You'd think there would be more selling activity about now before the whois doors "close".

 

[BaileyUK]

Loss of whois wouldn't really matter much, sure it's a port-of-call in domaining. but, anybody that relies on whois is set for failure

 

[DNWon]

Can't wait quite frankly! 20 less calls a day from people trying to sell me web design, SEO and Logo's!

 

[DomainRecap]

Can't wait quite frankly! 20 less calls a day from people trying to sell me web design, SEO and Logo's!

Not to mention the significant drop in identity thefts and social engineering attacks.

 

[urlurl]

the main issue i can see id verifying the identity of the owners who are selling on forums etc.

 

[imadoer]

Buying privately would be dead. May effect outbound sales as well

 

[MapleDots]

I'm sure in the end whois will be private but a masked contact form of some sort will be in place.

 

[karmaco]

It won’t affect me one bit as I value privacy and dislike spam and it doesn’t affect the type of selling I do. Inbound is interested in a name not your life story.

Outbound not sure about that as I no longer use that approach. Outbound has always been walking a fine line. Unsolicited marketing can turn into being labeled a spammer if not done wisely.

 

[Dorkvader]

Can't wait quite frankly! 20 less calls a day from people trying to sell me web design, SEO and Logo's!

You and me both, I made all my WHOis private. I opened one up to the public for a weekend. My phone is still ringing, but the first few days it was ringing every 10-15 minutes. It all stems from the same Countries too. I won't do business with people out of those countries anymore because the spamming/fraud is so bad. There is the "I'm with the IRS and going to throw you in jail", the "we have a loan for you 150,000% of your businesses value!" "My friend who is a prince wants to wire you $10,000,000 if you pay a $2,000 wire transfer fee"

Why don't they make the WHOis information available for purchase? Someone wants to contact the domain owner they can be a $5 fee to Godaddy or something. That would weed out 99% of the spammers. Yet still give those who are seriously interested in the domain another way of contacting the domain owner.

I can still be contacted, the domains are parked and I do have the emails rerouted. But they all land in my spam box. I just filter through spam folder once a day looking for any potential buyers.

 

[maya-zir]

I dont think Whois will desappear.
The reason is clear - money.
If by defoult the Whois will be anonimous, then how regustrars will make extra offering privacy?

 

[Galaxy Traveller]

Who is privacy is important especially for end users, who want an stalker knock the door using whois.

 

[joro001]

It is certainly bad news for domainers no question whatsoever about that in my opinion. It will be harder to buy direct from owners never mind outbound sales issues/questions of ownership verification etc.

The indirect impact will be auction prices will likely continue to go through the roof as a ton of domainers now won't be able to buy from the owners direct, so as if competition at expired auctions in particular isn't crazy enough as it is now, it is 100% going to get worse. We are already at the point where many domains are going for more than end users will pay, this is going to get a lot worse when whois disappears mark my words.

As an end user myself this change can't come quickly enough, as others have mentioned the spam will dry up very quickly hopefully, will be a massive time saver and frustration removed from having to constantly bulk delete these irritating SEO/web design/logo emails that flood my inbox. Oh and included in that is incredibly annoying persistent spam emails from domainers peddling their junk aggressively and asking me again and again for a response.

This day can't come quick enough for some.

 

[Arpit131]

Not at all. A landing page to receive inbound will solve the problem

What about outbound?

Maybe not "doom", but It would certainly have an adverse effect.

A lot of times, WHOIS is the only way to get in direct touch with the owner/CEO of a company. Without it, it would take a lot more time/work to get the same result.

I think all tlds should adopt the .ca practice of hiding the registrants info, yet still having a contact form available. Like this: (https://services.cira.ca/agree/mdf/index.action). It's such a boon for all involved.

Thanks with the resource. Such practise can definitely be helpful.

No any impact...
From my experience, under 10% of inquiries are coming via WHOIS...

Even positive effect from such change...
Because many buyers significantly lower their offers depending on the Seller's country...

I think outbound will be impacted big time here for domainers. Thought?

 

[Arpit131]

You'd think there would be more selling activity about now before the whois doors "close".

Short term profit. Long term pain.

Loss of whois wouldn't really matter much, sure it's a port-of-call in domaining. but, anybody that relies on whois is set for failure

Some people rely on that and are doing pretty well. I personally am into geo names and the best way is outbound. Whois definitely helps. We can't classify that way.

Can't wait quite frankly! 20 less calls a day from people trying to sell me web design, SEO and Logo's!

That's the only plus! A big one though who are getting disturbed a lot.

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

I think outbound will be impacted big time here for domainers. Thought?

How???
Up to 95% endusers are not aware about WHOIS at all...
Other ~5% - IT-specialists and attorneys...

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

p.s. In February I sold some doMEn to big Spanish company - WHOIS wasn't even updated by them...
Only after a few reminders from me and the detailed instructions (GoDaddy FAQ) - they did that.

 

[offthehandle]

News Article: April 21

https://mybroadband.co.za/news/security/257125-privacy-as-an-afterthought-online.html

 

[lock]

More problems would arise if hidden a lot more scams.

 

[Arpit131]

How???
Up to 95% endusers are not aware about WHOIS at all...
Other ~5% - IT-specialists and attorneys...

Well but domainers are. And reaching out helps in that case. I don't exactly know about brokers using Whois or not(although probability is less) but common domainers using outbound strategy do use it.

p.s. In February I sold some doMEn to big Spanish company - WHOIS wasn't even updated by them...
Only after a few reminders from me and the detailed instructions (GoDaddy FAQ) - they did that.

One of the case! We cannot generalize it. Of course platforms like GoDaddy, sedo, afternic would still be around. But the volume of sales taking place over email will drop significantly.

 

[MapleDots]

Selling, no big deal
Point all your domains to a lander, put your contact info on your lander and it will never be an issue.

Sucks though if you want to buy a domain

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

All running endusers have "Contact" details/forms on their websites...
I don't see any problems here... even for people who can't live without outbound.