While I am in NO WAY defending Righthaven (they had it coming, really), these draconian domain rules are ridiculous. Having to pay £5 (or whatever it is now) to hide your personal information on your domain is truly evil.

But obviously Righthaven doesn't care about their domain because if I recall correctly, GoDaddy sends three notifications before they suspend your domain.

>Having to pay £5 (or whatever it is now) to hide your personal information on your domain is truly evil.

Eh, when the domain name system was set up, it was designed with businesses and academics in mind. People who don't expect or want to be anonymous. The idea was that individuals would get services through a provider's domain, so the whole system assumes less privacy than one would expect out of a product one uses to run one's own email.

Really, I would personally be happy to give my customers a discount if they were willing to post contact info publicly. I mean, I wouldn't force the issue, because I know a lot of my customers really do want privacy, but my costs for hosting someone who says "hey, this is who I am, send abuse complaints to me" through rwhois on the IP or the like, and who handles those complaints without my help are lower than my costs otherwise.

I mean, I certainly understand and think it's okay that some people want to be anonymous, but you need to understand that you put yourself in a more expensive group by wanting that anonymity.

Now, is that 5 pounds per customer worth of 'more expensive' for a domain registrar? probably not. Abuse expenses are a little like insurance... 99% of your customers won't get any complaints, or the complaints they get will be resolved painlessly, but a few will be quite painful and eat a lot of time and money. (unless you take the 'kick off everyone who complains' approach.)

I haven't implemented such a 'discount for using your own realname and your own abuse contact' yet, in part because I'm afraid customers will see it as anti-privacy, so I'm still feeling out the idea, I'm just saying, there is an economic justification for it.

How does whois privacy actually work?

and can we make a safe one that doesn't cost more than a few cents per name per year?

Uh oh, this could be a bad sign of things to come for grey/black hat SEOs. Providing invalid WHOIS information is common practice among SEOs because it can help boost rankings when it appears like all your interlinked sites don't look like they are owned by the same person. If this is the beginning of a crackdown, there will be more drama to come.

There's no evidence of a crackdown, or even if there were, the fact that they were able to nab a rather notorious troll doesn't mean black hats who have been keeping their heads down will be vulnerable.

Providing invalid information == black hat

/thread

Wow, I get emails every week about updating my details but this is the first time I've ever seen a domain taken off because of it

If the email sent doesn't bounce, then it doesn't necessarily raise a flag.

As much as RightHaven might have been asshats, this sort of precedent concerns me.. I've had domain information that has been years out of date before I realized it.

I wonder what degree of "correctness" they need.. if I leave off an apartment number, is that bad enough? If I renew for 3 years and don't bother updating in there, can I get shut down?

Worry about your e-mail address and keep it functional and responsive. They don't care about an apartment number.

But technically an apartment number being wrong is also "invalid whois information." If it's just selective enforcement, that's a whole other pain.

The apartment analogy is .. erm "apt". Why do we effectively rent domains, and not really own them?

Wonder what was invalid. E-mail bouncing, maybe?

    Last Updated on: 12-Feb-11

    Administrative Contact:
        Gibson, Steven  rgibson@righthaven.com
        Righthaven LLC
        9960 West Cheyenne Avenue
        Suite 210
        Las Vegas, Nevada 89129
        United States
        +1.7025275900      Fax -- +1.7025275909

Slow down, there is no bad precedent here since black/gray SEOs know the risk when they falsify WHOIS data. Domain seizure for falsifying WHOIS has gone on for a long time. Every registrar reminds you of it constantly and it is your responsibility to keep it updated. There is not much active checking either (if any) and in my experience domains are only taken if they are actually reported through WDPRS and even then it is a long shot.

I dont think GoDaddy would suspend a domain without repeatedly trying to contact the registrant either and if they do, time to move. Make sure the e-mail details at your registrar and on your domains actually work, respond to them, and you should be fine.

This makes a case for not having your domain registration e-mail be handled by that domain too