Hi!

Many Reseller Programs use their own (program owners') nameservers.

Naturally Resellers like to have their upstream completely annonymous.

The easiest ways to contact the upstream are to look for the nameservers, check the ip block and dig the nameservers.

Is it unethical to suppress actual data for the nameserver domains, so that one cannot find out actual domain owners' details including email address?

EssEss

Not in the world of buisness.

Originally posted by EssEss
Hi!

Is it unethical to suppress actual data for the nameserver domains, so that one cannot find out actual domain owners' details including email address?

EssEss

I am not sure if this is ethical or not. But I am just guessing that you are anonymous one as well right? :)

Your domain (www.indHOSTS.net - The NO PROBLEM Hosting)
sits on these nameservers: OWNNS.com and this is what you have on WHOIS:

Whois information for OWNNS.COM

Registrar: TUCOWS, INC.

Registrant:
OwnNS
00
00
00
00, 00 00000
US

Domain Name: OWNNS.COM

Administrative Contact:
.com, Ownns ns@ownns.com
00
00
00
00, 00 00000
US
0000000000

Technical Contact:
.com, Ownns ns@ownns.com
00
00
00
00, 00 00000
US
0000000000

Billing Contact:
.com, Ownns ns@ownns.com
00
00
00
00, 00 00000
US
0000000000


Record last updated on 21-Dec-2001.
Record expires on 07-Jun-2002.
Record Created on 07-Jun-2001.

Domain servers in listed order:
DNS1.OWNNS.COM 209.123.61.8
DNS2.OWNNS.COM 209.123.61.9

:D :D :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :D :D

Ironic sin't it....
:stickout

so who owns the domain

00


i guess

hehehehhe

Exactly. That's me. I do it for the interest of my resellers. These nameservers are used for my resellers' domains too.

My query was, "Is it unethical?"

indHOSTS.net is not annonymous. You may get the details of that domain or ME. :stickout

[QUOTE]Originally posted by EssEss
My query was, [B]"Is it unethical?"

[QUOTE]


I don't unethical is the correct word. I personally don't think it is honest to hide your identity. Being anonymous is one thing, but going to great lenths to prevent people from contacting you or your upstream providers is another.

For me it is not professional. So if you want to be annonymous, then do you want to have annonymous customers for your hosting business??

Your nameservers are blank, yes it is true you domain indhosts.net has info about you (I believe..) but your other domain indhosts.com is blank also:

Registrar: TUCOWS, INC.


Registrant:
0000
0000
0000
0000
0000, 0000 0000
IN

Domain Name: INDHOSTS.COM

Administrative Contact:
000, 0000 our_resellers_have_confidence@us.com
0000
0000
0000
0000, 0000 0000
IN
0000

Technical Contact:
000, 0000 our_resellers_have_confidence@us.com
0000
0000
0000
0000, 0000 0000
IN
0000

Billing Contact:
000, 0000 our_resellers_have_confidence@us.com
0000
0000
0000
0000, 0000 0000
IN
0000


Record last updated on 10-Dec-2001.
Record expires on 31-Oct-2002.
Record Created on 31-Oct-2001.

Domain servers in listed order:
DNS1.OWNNS.COM 209.123.61.8
DNS2.OWNNS.COM 209.123.61.9

If you want to conduct a good business practice, then you should do everything right in the first place. As you know in order to have a domain, you should give up your info. I believe you can find this info on netsol.com

but your other domain indhosts.com is blank

Spade, thanks for mentioning. Actually I realized that there was no reason to keep the contact details of indHOSTS.com blank, as my resellers wouldn't use any details of indHOSTS.com. So, I have put back all the details.

Being anonymous is one thing, but going to great lenths to prevent people from contacting you or your upstream providers is another.

Remarkable: Can you please put some light on how to remain annonymous and prevent people from contacting their providers at the same time, keeping complete nameserver contact details?

I think, Resellers like to have complete anonymity of their upstream providers. Just for a debate if I say :

1. What's wrong in creating a separate domain name for resellers to use as nameservers only and keep the information fields blank.

2. What's wrong in giving the email address of a web-based email service as the Net-block contact email address?

My queries are :

1. Don't Resellers want to have complete anonymity of their upstream provider?

2. If so, how to satisfy their needs.

Hope, this time my queries are more clear.

Ok, this seems pretty debatable. But lets take this to another
level shall we :D

Let’s say your Reseller is hosting illegal files, or copyrighted files
under your nose. The person who is trying to report the client
gets nowhere because he/she can't contact you because there is
no information on how to. Wouldn't you want to be contacted
about that?

Of course this is one of the many scenarios we could face. Total
Anonymous reselling is good, but can be abused also.

Good one, Mafukie. But if the email address you put is valid one, even if it is put on a free webbased email account. Then?

Originally posted by EssEss
Good one, Mafukie. But if the email address you put is valid one, even if it is put on a free webbased email account. Then?

Yes, that would be a good thing for you to do, or just make an
email: abuse@ownns.com since its just for your resellers.

But since people viewing this topic knows ownss.com is tied in
with indhosts.com so it really dosn't matter any more.

Well, sometimes, I get clients apart from WHT members too...:eek: That will be good for them.

EssEss,

Why are you so paranoid? Why do you want to be invisible?

Please don't take this as a criticism. It is up to you how to do your own hosting business.

This is my suggestion, just be open, honest, let your customer have personal "touch" of your business and visible for them, so that they can feel your service.

This is my 2 cents. :)

I think it is unethical to try and spam search engines.

See the "hidden" text at the bottom of the home page at indhosts.net.

You're not supposed to put fake information for domain name contacts. It's against the terms of service with most registrars. As for remaining anonymous, I wouldn't consider it unethical unless you're being anonymous for unethical purposes. ;) At least put real information for your domain names.

They are not hidden.

hmmm unethical

i have a ? for you

why does your bbb program image look like u stole it from clickbank i could not find your site anywhere listed with the bbb online and also if u follow your bbb image you get taken to the company info on clickbank with the bbb

isnt that unethical ?


<A HREF="#" onClick=window.open('http://www.bbbonline.org/cks.asp?id=101010311244613870','bbb','toolbar=no,directories=no,resize=no,menubar=no,location=yes,scrollbars=yes,width=500,height=350,maximize=null,le ft=0,top=0')> <image border=0 width=90 height=31 src=http://clickbank.com/images/bbb90x31.gif></a><BR>

I use ClickBank as my payment gateway. I have not put the BBB logo image in my site. That's clickbank's logo, have put clickbank's link. Not mine. The report also talks about clickbank.

Nothing unethical about it.

well thats still lying

lets say i run redhat as my server can i use redhats bbb status since i use them nope

I don't think you are comparing the equal situations.

Lots of people say "We Accept: MC, VISA"...etc...but actually they don't. BBB logo and details about clickbank is put to generate confidence about ClickBank, not about indHOSTS.

I think you're deviating from the point of the discussion of my question.

<<NOTE: I've emailed you about this, logo should be removed, everyone else continue on with the thread topic please>>

My query was, "Is it unethical?"

No, but only until customers ask you upfront and then you need to be straight forward.

I think its only unethical if you are telling your customers that you have your own servers when you are in fact a reseller.

I don't know about ethical... (Alan and ToastyX already pointed out the obvious), but I think all this "hiding game" is time wasted, since a reseller can rarely hide who they are reselling for or in what NOC the servers are located.

EssEss: surf to http://hexillion.com/utilities/DomainDossier.vbs.asp, type in your domain name and tick all the boxes. Look at Network Whois Record and Service Scan (especially port 25). They pretty much told me all there is to know and to be honest, I didn't even stop to look at the nameservers you are using.

Hi All!!

I'll check with ClickBank and BBB if it's wrong. If BBB says it's wrong to put it that way, I'll definitely remove it and let you all know here too.

They pretty much told me all there is to know and to be honest, I didn't even stop to look at the nameservers you are using.

Exactly. As you are quite experienced, you can dig more further, though you also should know who hosts where and who all are upstream providers.

I think its only unethical if you are telling your customers that you have your own servers when you are in fact a reseller.

Your website (SplashHost) say :

Splash Host will remain in the background managing the server for you. With your own name servers ns1 and ns2.yourdomain.com your clients will not know you are in any way asssociated with us.

:D

Splash Host will remain in the background managing the server for you. With your own name servers ns1 and ns2.yourdomain.com your clients will not know you are in any way asssociated with us.


This is so our reseller customers dont find us and go with us instead, not so our resellers can claim to be something they arent

Ok. Should they display a message something like :

"We haven't rented a Dedicated Server. Nor we own a server of our own. We have our Reseller Account with ..... So, if you find our Reseller Accounts high priced, you may please go to our upstream provider ....."

??

The whole aspect of a reseller account is to sell hosting services under their brand name. Now if their nameservers show ns1.*****reseller.com ns2.*****reseller.com do you think the party interested in hosting services will be more encouraged to signup? I saw this happen even with ANONYMOUS nameservers. Im sure a good majority of hosters or hosted on this board know who owns ns1.livedns.co.uk and ns2.livedns.co.uk (fasthosts) and that also discouraged people in signing up.

Hi Guyz!

As I promised, I'm letting you know that I received the feedback from BBB online, about linking their logo from my website, which talks about ClickBank....

Well, BBB advised me to remove the logo from the website.

And, I've removed it now.

:beer:

EssEss,

You started out asking if it was unethical to supress actual information.
As a consultant I will tell you that it is always better to be honest with your customers and visitors.
When I get a query for services, my visitors know that I resell services from other providers to them, at a slight higher price. But my clients also know that with the smallest error a representative will call them immediately and have the issue resolved in a timely manner.

I have nothing to hide from my customers. Personally I would be reluctant to do business with anyone that I do not have information on. Most of the time I will be out of a lot of money.

Conclusion: YES, it is very unethical. If you franchise a McDonalds restaurant, does it mean that you own that Restaurant? The answer is NO, you are just managing it.

Hope I cleared up the illusion that you need to be totally anonymous.

Hello vsomored,

Thank you for posting your clean and clear conception.

The point is, whether all resellers like to announce their upstream providers' names. If someone, like you, wants to announce, they can always say that they represent 'indhosts'. indhosts is not unreachable or annonymous. The annonymous part is only the nameservers and other things as i mentioned before, so that the resellers who do not want to disclose their upstream providers' names and addresses (which I guess the majority--that's why all popular reseller hosts talk about being annonymous or transparent), can become a reseller of that host too!

When I get a query for services, my visitors know that I resell services from other providers to them, at a slight higher price. But my clients also know that with the smallest error a representative will call them immediately and have the issue resolved in a timely manner.
If you are personally known to a would-be client, they'll definitely depend upon you more than your provider. But, imagine, if you get an unknown visitor to your website, and you announce that you are reselling blah-blah's service, s/he will definitely visit the upstream's website. If she finds their rates low, will she still sign up with you just because you'll solve any issue on her behalf faster than your upstream's own client?

I invite views of the fellow WHT members about it including you vsomored.

:beer: