I mean, are domain names controlled by the US government? Can I use an anonymous name and pay with pre-paid visas to totally protect myself, or will FBI come kicking in my door for fraud or something?
~Kujila
ID:182439
 Jun 30 2008, 8:32 pm
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Using a company to hide your contact details in a WHOIS search is one way. The only problem with that is, the company will substitute their information for yours. So in the eyes of the law, the domain is owned by the registar and not the one who pays for it.
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Yeah, it's not fraud as in a federal offense. You can loose your domain name, and ICANN(the governing body of domain names) could legally pursue you, but you wouldn't be arrested for it.
Domain names aren't controlled by the US government. ICANN controls them, which is an independent third party, originally setup by the US Government but not controlled, run by, or anything of that type. I recommend going with a registrar that will allow you to do a private registration for free, like DreamHost. | |
What I am surprised that no one asked is why? Why would you need to hide yourself from a web site being run or owned by you unless you are performing illegal practices to begin with.
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Jeremy.Kuehnau wrote:
What I am surprised that no one asked is why? Why would you need to hide yourself from a web site being run or owned by you unless you are performing illegal practices to begin with. Because that information is publicly accessible, and some people don't want their name, phone number, and address plastered all over the internet. Which ironically just happened recently. | |
Jeremy.Kuehnau wrote:
am surprised that no one asked is why? Because the possible reasons to want to do are pretty obvious, so there was no need. In short, no, if you want to have anonymity it doesn't necessarily mean it's because you're doing illegal or other things you want to hide. | |
I find that hard to believe. In all honesty, the fact is, whatever you do, solicitors are always going to find a way to get your contact information, if you like it or not. And people already deal with junk mail and spam on a day to day basis, without even having to sign up for anything, so it shouldn't be a big deal. So to me, it really comes down to them doing something they could get into trouble for and want to cover their tracks for it.
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Jeremy.Kuehnau wrote:
Solicitors are always going to find a way to get your contact information, if you like it or not. Solicitors should NEVER get your contact information; if you manage it correctly. Clearly you've just been handing yours out to everybody And people already deal with junk mail and spam on a day to day basis, without even having to sign up for anything, so it shouldn't be a big deal. I rarely ever get spam emails, and 90% of the ones I do get are from some random fool trying to get me to join their facebook or myspace or whatever it is. So to me, it really comes down to them doing something they could get into trouble for and want to cover their tracks for it. Thats what the internet was made for =P | |
Jeremy.Kuehnau wrote:
And people already deal with junk mail and spam on a day to day basis, without even having to sign up for anything, Speak for yourself. | |
I do speak for myself. I recently made a new e-mail address, on a different computer, from a different IP in a different state. And in about 3 days I already started to get spam mail in my inbox.
Where I used to live, you had to pay a special fee to NOT have your information available to the general public. That includes the phone book and any other available databases in the area, and it wasn't cheap. I don't hand my information out to just anyone because honestly I don't like people. I don't trust them. That dosen't stop people from calling my new cell phone number I never gave out to anyone except my girlfriend and parents. Trying to sell me crap or asking me if I heard the imaginary word of Jesus. | |
Jeremy.Kuehnau wrote:
I do speak for myself. Nope. Your previous post made a generalization. Quite a false one, at that. | |
Jeremy.Kuehnau wrote:
I do speak for myself. I recently made a new e-mail address, on a different computer, from a different IP in a different state. And in about 3 days I already started to get spam mail in my inbox. Did you post that anywhere online? Web crawlers can find anything resembling an email address (Including things like blarg [at] bloop [dot] com, as regex is powerful enough to handle that. People that do that are, at best, holding off the inevitable. At worst, they're deluding themselves), meaning posting on a random page makes you able to have spam mail sent to. | |
If you've got nothing to hide, then you won't mind me coming in daily to your home to make sure everything is up to par. You won't mind me monitoring your phone calls to make sure you're not doing any underhanded dealings. You won't mind me installing a chip into your head so that I can track you everywhere you go to make sure you aren't hanging out with the wrong people. You won't mind me installing a chip into your car to make sure it stops when the police need to pull you over. You won't mind......
Oh and anyway, to answer the question. Most domain registrars will just turn you away if they find out you're using invalid information. www.domainsite.com will give you hidden whois service for 50 cents extra a year. | |
It's fraud which is only a civil thing, but depending on where you live, various terrorism based laws may cause it to be considered a crime.
Your best bet is just find a registrar that will hide your personal information free of charge. Another possible option may be registering a business/corporation and using that information for the domain.