Whois Legalities

Russ86

New member
May 8, 2009
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San Diego
Ok, so im just tired of paying extra money for privacy on my domains.

I tried just putting a bunch of bullshit in the fields and it literally displays whatever you put in there. As far as I know from what I've read, there is nothing legally obligating me to put accurate registrant/billing/technical information.

I found this on wiki:

The Fraudulent Online Identity Sanctions Act[13] "make it a violation of trademark and copyright law if a person knowingly provided, or caused to be provided, materially false contact information in making, maintaining, or renewing the registration of a domain name used in connection with the violation,"[14] where the latter "violation" refers to a prior violation of trademark or copyright law. The act does not make the submission of false WHOIS data illegal in itself, only if used to shield oneself from prosecution for crimes committed using that domain name.
So I'm just curious, if putting erroneous info in your whois data isn't illegal, then what is the fucking point of paying for domain privacy.

Anyone else have any further knowledge on the subject?
 


Never had issues with phony name, email, adress...

I just put on the Whois info the same details domain privacy companies put and I save a shitload of money. This way 90% of people think the whois is anonymous anyway.
 
Yes, your biggest risk is that registrars, upon being reported to that a site has false Whois info, will cancel your registration. Some are quite trigger-happy on this one. A competitor could get your registration cancelled with a single email in theory, depending on the registrar, what kind of false info in in it, whether they have a way to contact you, etc.
 
Yes, your biggest risk is that registrars, upon being reported to that a site has false Whois info, will cancel your registration. Some are quite trigger-happy on this one. A competitor could get your registration cancelled with a single email in theory, depending on the registrar, what kind of false info in in it, whether they have a way to contact you, etc.

Smart man. Found this in namecheap's registration agreement:

"ACCURATE ACCOUNT CONTACT INFORMATION AND DOMAIN NAME WHOIS INFORMATION. As further consideration for the Service(s), you agree to provide certain current, complete and accurate information about you, both with respect to your account information and with respect to the WHOIS information for your domain name(s). You agree to maintain and update this information as needed to keep it current, complete and accurate. With respect to you, the administrative, technical, and billing contacts for your domain name registration(s) and other Service(s), you must submit the following: name, postal address, e-mail address, voice telephone number, and, if available, fax number. You agree that the type of information you are required to provide may change and you understand that, if you do not provide the newly required information, your registration or and/or other Service(s) may be suspended or terminated or may not be renewed. In the event the lack of accurate/current contact information results in the loss, cancellation or transfer of the domain name(s) associated with your account, you agree that you shall not hold Namecheap liable for any such loss or any damages associated with the loss. Not providing requested information may prevent you from obtaining all Service(s). You may provide information regarding the name-servers assigned to your domain name(s) and, if we are providing name-server services to you, the DNS settings for the domain name."
 
You can get your domain and registration / hosting cancelled as in the TOS of the providers they often disallow fake informations so this can proove costly if a project is making money.