I want to register domains on behalf of my customers.

Is it correct to provide following whois informations?
registrant = customer' s name
admin-c = customer' s name
billing-c = my company' s name
tech-c = my company' s name

Does every registrar (namecheap, godaddy, enom) let you edit those informations or do you have to get a reseller account?

I have looked at Intel' s and Microsoft' s whois. Those do only show company informations and there are no names of human beings. How can I hide my name and only show my company name?

Originally posted by cyberx
I want to register domains on behalf of my customers.

Is it correct to provide following whois informations?
registrant = customer' s name
admin-c = customer' s name
billing-c = my company' s name
tech-c = my company' s name

Does every registrar (namecheap, godaddy, enom) let you edit those informations or do you have to get a reseller account?

I have looked at Intel' s and Microsoft' s whois. Those do only show company informations and there are no names of human beings. How can I hide my name and only show my company name?
I can tell you how it works at eNom:

If you establish a retail account for yourself at eNom (or, preferably, at one of its resellers so you can get a lower price), then you could easily register a domain name for a client and then just manage it there. And you could completely control the WHOIS information in any way you'd like. And as long as you were doing all the controlling of the domain's behavior for your client and never letting him log-in and do it himself, that could work out.

But if you start doing that for more than just a couple of people, it really makes more sense to become an eNom reseller. You'd have all the same amount of control over things as described in the previous paragraph, plus you'd have even more features -- including the ability to assign a password to just the domain and then your client could, if you wanted him to be able to do so, log-in to and control his domain at eNom's generic, tan control panel interface (http://access.enom.com). Plus, you could also control his domain in your direct eNom account using your Log-in ID on the eNom web site. And, obviously, as a reseller you'd get lower pricing than if you tried to do it in a retail account.

That would make a whole lot more sense.

But in either case -- whether you tried to do it in a retail account or you tried to do it in a reseller account -- the contents of the various WHOIS fields really needs to reflect the truth about the situation. It should include the true name of the REGISTRANT in that field. And if the REGISTRANT is also the person who handles the administrivia associated with the domain then his name should also be in the ADMINISTRATIVE CONTACT field. But if you are, and if the registrant agrees that it's okay for his WHOIS record to reflect same, then there's nothing wrong with your name being in that field. As for the other fields, whatever is in them should accurately reflect the truth about the situation and your and your clien'ts true relationship to the domain. If you're handling billing, then you can be in that field. If your client is, then he should be. If you're the technical contact in the truest sense of that word, then you can be. If he is, then he should be. (And, remember, the TECHNICAL CONTACT field usually refers to who is in charge of the technicalities of the web site more than it refers to who's in charge of technicalities of the domain name, although it can be that, too.)

Whatever you put into the various WHOIS fields should be accurate and should accurately reflect your and/or your client's relationship to the domain. One should not play games in the various WHOIS fields. And as a domain seller (or, more accurately, a reseller) you should not use your ability to change the contents of the WHOIS fields to take control of (or to "hijack") your client's domain against his will -- even if you and he get into an argument or something. Be ethical and fair under all circumstances.

As for hiding your personal name (i.e., only showing your company name) in the WHOIS record, you can certainly do that with eNom-registered domains. In the "name" field you can just put something like "Administrator" or some other title. It's no big deal. But it must, under ICANN rules, be accurate. And, most importantly, the email addresses provided need to be live and working and mail sent to them needs to end-up either in the inbox of the person in charge because if anyone needs to reach the person controlling the domain and can't you or your client could end-up losing it or having some other kind of problem that sneaks-up on you because you had no warning because no one could reach you. Plus, unless you give accurate email address information, you'll not know when your registrar sends you emails telling you how to renew the domain. Plus, finally, ICANN requires that that information be completely accurate or you can lose the domain altogether (i.e., get it taken away from you by the registrar for failure to provide accurate WHOIS data).

Of course I will only make true statements. I just wasn' t sure about what to fill in the various fields. I would never try to hijack a customers domain. You will only get into big trouble, even if you think you are right (eg customer did not pay his bill).

I also wanted to find out which fields are important for domain transfer. I have heard that admin-c is pretty important for domain transfers. Is that right?

My clients will only get one bill for all services (website, webhosting, domain) and I will take care of everything. So I think it' s no problem to be billing-c and tech-c. I have to think about claiming the admin-c, too.

But what about the comany info I mentioned? The reason I ask is, that in my opinion it looks much more professional to display pure company informations. Moreover, right now my company name is displayed after my name.

But I don' t know if displaying pure company information is legal. I think that all of our country domains display at least one person. Do you have to follow country rules or icann rules for cno domains?

Originally posted by cyberx
I also wanted to find out which fields are important for domain transfer. I have heard that admin-c is pretty important for domain transfers. Is that right?
You know... that's a good question. I always thought it was the contents of the REGISTRANT field, but somewhere in the back of my mind is an incident I encountered a long time ago wherein that did not seem to be true and the contents of the ADMINISTRATIVE CONTACT field seemed to prevail. But my memory could be failing me.

If anyone reading this truly knows (and isn't just guessing) -- and specifically truly knows how it works with eNom -- please post the answer to that question here. I think we're all interested.
Originally posted by cyberx
But what about the comany info I mentioned? The reason I ask is, that in my opinion it looks much more professional to display pure company informations. Moreover, right now my company name is displayed after my name.
I think I added my last paragraph of the posting to which you're responding after you read it. That paragraph covers this question.
Originally posted by cyberx
But I don' t know if displaying pure company information is legal. I think that all of our country domains display at least one person. Do you have to follow country rules or icann rules for cno domains?
Country rules.

Originally posted by DesElms

You know... that's a good question. I always thought it was the contents of the REGISTRANT field, but somewhere in the back of my mind is an incident I encountered a long time ago wherein that did not seem to be true and the contents of the ADMINISTRATIVE CONTACT field seemed to prevail. But my memory could be failing me.

If anyone reading this truly knows (and isn't just guessing) -- and specifically truly knows how it works with eNom -- please post the answer to that question here. I think we're all interested.



Here is an article (http://www.denic.de/doc/DENIC/presse/owner.en.html) by the German registry.

Although the domain belongs to the registrant, you could run into problems because only the admin-c is contacted during domain transfer. This only applies to cno domains. Our German domains are handled differently: the registrant, and not the admin-c, has to authorize the transfer. I think .info and .biz domains have to be authorized by the registrant, too.

So you better take care of being registered as admin-c as well.