Question
I hope this is the place to ask this question. I just registered 3 domain names yesterday and was asked 2 times if I really wanted them to be public. And I said yes because all my information would be listed right on the front page of my store.
Then today I actually get a call from Godaddy asking the same question again. And this time I told him I'd check into it before making a decision. He's talking about phishers and scamers and spammers and all, and I have no idea if it's necessary or not. Tomorrow morning is the deadline for my decision.
And it wouldn't be just for the name I'm actually going to use, but all 3, even though 2 will probably just be sitting for quite a while.
This privacy product would add another $23.85 to what I've already paid, and times are tight for me right now. I don't really want to do it unless it's absolutely needed.
Does anyone have any opinions on this?
Thanks much for your help.
Pat
Answer
I guess I'd vote for private.
I'll have to check on my four - I don't even KNOW if they're private or public.
(But a total stab in the dark would be private.)
There's aleady too much information available online for the public to use - why give them more?
(Personal note from me to you - make sure your domain names are LOCKED!)
Answer
Spammers will not be effected anyway because your email addy will be on your site.. plus, if you have a 'catch-all' email, people can send an email to ANYWHERE*yourdomain.com and it will still go into your inbox. Phishers don't need domain name registration to get your info and they mainly target people's email (think PayPal SPOOF emails).. it's a waste of their time to look up your domain if they can just email a few hundred thousand people
And IMHO if someone is trying to look up you contact information via your domain name and it is private, they may not trust buying from you. How would you feel if OWTA blocked their domain info?
I've never had my domain listed as private, I get NO junk email, the only phishing attacks I get are from my ISP email addy. I think it's a waste of money personally.
Answer
I don't make mine private, either. In my case, it's a waste of time. When I applied for a business license (for sales tax), that information was made public by law. What's the sense in paying for privacy in one place when I can't get privacy in the other?
I did take some precautions, like acquiring a business address and phone number different from my home.
Answer
I would really like to get a business mailing address different from my home address, but at the moment I'm without a car and checking the PO Box every day would be next to impossible. So for the time being I'm stuck.
And, for the business phone, I'm using my toll free number which is different from my home number, even though they ring through the same line.
I'm not gonna get all paranoid about it right away. The main thing I need to be thinking about is getting the store up and running and stocked. That's a big enough deal in itself. I decided to go with Prestostore.com after hearing good things about it on the eBay board and I think it was mentioned here, too. Not sure about that, though.
I set up a demo store and it was easy as pie. I just hope that the real store will be as easy to work with when I get started.
Pat
Answer
My domain name was first regisitered in 2000 and it is not private. The only information available through ~WHOIS~ is my business name and zip code. My name is listed as administrative contact along with a phone number. I've never had a problem with unsolicited contacts.
Answer
I hope you don't mind if I comment, even though this is an older thread. I have several domain names. Most I've owned for less than a year, but one of them is 2 years old. Two of my names are used for my two websites and the others are just pointing to my websites. None of my domains have ever been private. I have my contact info on my websites and I put it inside the "mailto" set-up like website designers recommend doing to reduce spam. Ha! Almost ALL of the emails I get through my websites are spam! (However, I have recieved a few nice emails from people who were browsing my site.)
When I check my site log I notice that there are a lot of visits coming from whois. That makes me suspect that spammers are using my whois info to spam me. But I can't be sure.
Anyway, my webhost offers a spam filter, so I just blacklist all the spam and eventually the filter starts snagging most of the spam itself and then I just go in and delete it. I had considered making my domains private and then changing my email addresses. But I do have a catch-all email, so I don't think that would solve the problem. So for now, I'm just relying on my spam filter.
One thing I recommend is to use an email browser that doesn't open pictures in email. That will help defeat the webbugs that spammers use to tell whether their spam is being read. But I can usually tell it's spam just by the subject, so don't even bother to open it.
Answer
Ask them what they mean by "private"
Regulations require that domains have a whois public display regarding the registrar, the owner, server, etc.
I think what they're referring to is making your identity anonymous, where they act as proxy registrant, and the domain lists them as the owner, contact, etc. Unless you're running an adult, gambling, or some other type of site where its best that your identity is kept private, its not something of any real value.
I don't believe it has anything to do with protecting you from phishing or any other sort of security threat.
The only other thing that I can think of might be usage for VPN, virtual private networking. A good example of that would be where a company with remote offices might have access to a website, but public access is restricted. In that case, they generally use a whitelist of permitted IP addresses and/or a secure sign-in process.
So this privacy thing could relate to either of these issues, or both. Neither one has anything to do with phishing as far as I know. I just read the other day that a new sort of phishing threat is starting to surface. Not only links from unscruplous emails, but other links as well. Like, I could place a link right here to some copycat website even.
There are methods that sites can use to help authenticate a website, but that discussion will have to come later. You asked about domain names and I don't want to stray off topic any further than I already did.