I remember reading that it's against ICANN's rules to use a PO Box for your address in the whois information. Is that true, and are you putting your domain at risk by using a PO Box for some privacy?

well, a po is all i have so i guess they're outta luck

As long as they insist on making contact information public, people are going to use anything other than their own address.

It's like me going to buy a car and Ford painting my name and address on the side of the showroom - utterly rediculous.

The legal requirement (as far as ICANN and registries requiring ICANN accreditation is concerned) is for a "postal address" which does not preclude PO Boxes.

Other registries have other requirements. In this context, for example, Austria (the .AT registry) prohibits the use of PO boxes. They are the only registry that prohibits PO Boxes in the 61 TLDs that we support; there may be others of which I'm unaware.

Thanks, Dominator.

It does sound stupid to preclude PO Boxes, but then require people provide any postal address and phone number in the public record for a domain makes no sense imo :).

I use a P.O. Box from my local U.S. Post Office (I don't need nuts threatening my kids over political positions taken on some website I host but maybe don't agree with). If a United States Post Office Box as my mailing address is not good enough, then let's publish all those ICANN administrators' addresses on the internet. I'm sure they would like to start their Sunday mornings with paintballs on their front windows. ;)

Let's not get all excited here...

I use P.O. Boxes, too, for my personal registrations. Three, in fact, each for different corporations. And I'm a registrar -- we use a P.O. Box for our mailing address (and the WhoIs details), too.

Post Office boxes are Okay. There is nothing that precludes them (except for .AT, as I indicated above.

I use ONLY a PO Box address - or WHOIS privacy - on all my domains and don't think that anyone really cares.