Hi there,

I'm about to register my first domain (my hosting company did it for me last time), and I plan on doing it through godaddy. I was looking at their "private/unlisted" feature, and I had a question.

If I were to register it with the "standard/public" feature, can I edit my all of my personal info so it's not displayed on a whois search?

Last time, when my host registered my current domain, I had asked them to edit out my personal info (I don't own a company/business, so my home address was viewable), which they did, only displaying my name & email address.

Any help in this matter would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!

Godaddy requires you to either put your true information in the whois or use their private feature.

ICANN policies require domain ownership information to be publicly available - you could always put false information there - but if something goes wrong, you might have some difficulties in proving the domain is yours (very rare). The information you put in is ALWAYS editable via godaddy's (or any other registrar's) control panel.

I thought you were not allowed to lie in the WHOIS search. You can have a company mask it for you, but I didn't think you were allowed to lie. Maybe I am wrong.

No you are not allowed to lie - my point was that if you do, and something goes wrong it may not be easy to get your domain back

That's right - technically, ICANN wants the information in the Whois record to remain truthful. The registrar usually provides the domain owner with full control to update the contact information, so it is possible for the owner to enter false information - but I have seen a few cases in which domain owners were asked to provide proof that they were the true owner - and it's a good thing all the information in the record was accurate or they would have been forced to reckon with a long legal process.

Many of our customers have used PO Box addresses in the Whois instead of their physical one, to keep the record accurate but maintain some privacy.

Also note: with the increasing popularity of .biz and .us domains, identity checking could become more frequent.

Hi everyone, thank you for your replies.

I value my privacy as I'm sure many do. I already registered the domain last night, and I assume that if I left all of the contact info like so

FirstName LastName
n/a
-
- Texas -
United States
555 555 5555
my_real_email@host.com
I could risk getting the domain/account deleted? On my current domain's whois, the contact info, etc is displayed similar to the above. Thank you for your replies on this matter. :)

Originally posted by epolady
Hi everyone, thank you for your replies.

I value my privacy as I'm sure many do. I already registered the domain last night, and I assume that if I left all of the contact info like so


I could risk getting the domain/account deleted? On my current domain's whois, the contact info, etc is displayed similar to the above. Thank you for your replies on this matter. :)

You are in breach of the registration agreement with the registar if you do not provide valid whois information. Registrar's generally will provide you 15 days to comply if a complaint is received. If you fail to respond or update the whois within the given timeframe your domain name is subject to suspension or termination.

Tom

I value my privacy as I'm sure many do.

Which is why I pay a few bucks and get a private mail box.

Hi, thank you for your reply.

I guess I'm SOL and have to put my info. I guess I should stop being paranoid. I'm just not comfortable with having my address & number for all to see. I guess I should invest in a PO Box later on. Thank you again!

Here's some tips:

You're home address is already out there - if they want to mail you something, it'll be at their cost and wont be that hard to do.

Your email address is public record in whois - create a pop account and set it to spamthisemail@domain.com or something like that.

Your phone number can also be easily attained - dont use your home number, definitely dont use your cell phone number. Ureach used to provide a private 877 number for $7/month (which is what i use) see if you can find osmething similar to put in place ;)