How do some registrars and hosting providers offer free private whois?

Are they simply just changing the contact info to a default private address and not charging?

If so can this feature be added to WHMCS?

I currently use enom and their private whois for customers but they charge extra for private whois.

Can I just offer a private contact we administer for the private contact info so i can offer Free Private Whois?

Any thoughts?

Some Resellers offer Private Whois for free eg. ResellerClub.

ok thanks. I'm with enom and am happy with them except for the fact they charge for Private Whois.

What's stopping me from just changing the Whois Info to something like the following and managing the address for my customers?

NAME: Private Registrant
EMAIL: private@interactiveonline.com

Davet,

There is nothing that is stopping you from doing that.

But you would need to maintain a database of whois also for your customers domain, so that you know what detail was submitted by your clients.

If you are the ONLY client, then dont worry go ahead. Just make sure that the email id is active.

Since, every registrar has to send a wdrp mail every 6 months, so that clients can update the whois and if proven otherwise, the domain can be deleted.

Suyash

I sent this to enom...

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Why do you charge extra for Private Whois when other registrars offer this for free?

What's stopping me from just changing the contact info on a customer's domain to something like:

NAME: Private Registration
EMAIL private@interactiveonline.com

and I would just manage any requests sent to the private address...
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Here's their response...
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We recommend that you have correct whois information as per ICANN regulations your site might be audited and you risk chance of losing it if there is a complaint against you. As ICANN allows us to we offer an ID protection service for a minimal fee along with the rest of the other registrars.
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They charge for the administration fee, I am in the process of starting a private WHOIS service and there is a lot of legal work and farting about. I have encouraged all clients I have ever worked with to have correct WHOIS data unless theres is an issue, then I set the WHOIS to Myself, and if contacted regarding the domain I just contact the website owner.

I am in the process of starting a private WHOIS service and there is a lot of legal work and farting about.

So in order to legally manage the private whois for my customers... I have to register as a private whois service provider? Or I guess apply to be one?

What is the registration cost?

Where can this be done?

Do you have any links to info on this?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

If you have clients that want private whois, do you not want to charge them the fee you'd incur?

Alternatively, you could always just use your business address in lieu of their address. Just ensure that it's a legitimate address though.

If you have clients that want private whois, do you not want to charge them the fee you'd incur?

No I don't want to charge them. My goal is to offer free whois ID protection for all domain registrations. I feel it would be an added selling point to promote our hosting service which come with 2 free domain registrations. It would be nice if I could offer 2 Free Domain Registrations which both include Free Private Whois.

Currently my option via enom is to pay $6.00/year per domain for Whois ID Protect. I do currently charge $9.95/year for this feature but woudl liek to offer it for free instead.

I thought I could just manage a private whois profile myself and save the $6.95/year Whois ID Protect fee.

No I don't want to charge them. My goal is to offer free whois ID protection for all domain registrations. I feel it would be an added selling point to promote our hosting service which come with 2 free domain registrations. It would be nice if I could offer 2 Free Domain Registrations which both include Free Private Whois.

Well, you've got two options then. Either take the cost of the whois protection and purchase it from the registrar you're with. OR just utilize a business address although the problem with that is that there is never any record of the client address on file.

OR just utilize a business address although the problem with that is that there is never any record of the client address on file.

I use WHMCS as my billing software. Customers first create a customer profile and then purchase their domains. I'd have their contact info of their customer profile... which is typically the same as their whois info anyways.

I use WHMCS as my billing software. Customers first create a customer profile and then purchase their domains. I'd have their contact info of their customer profile... which is typically the same as their whois info anyways.

No, that's not what I'm referring to. I'm referring to the fact that their domain's registrant information will never have any shred of their information being attached to it.

Hypothetically if they wanted to grab their domain from you by going straight to the registrar, you can normally provide your information that correlates with whois to show you own the domain and want to access it and/or transfer it elsewhere.

The 2nd option I stated would never allow them to do such as it would have YOUR information under the domain and would never have theirs as it would if they just went with private whois from the registrar.

I do know namecheap offer free private whios guard and they offer free Private SSLs for this month.

I use OpenSRS and they don't charge anything for it.

I do know namecheap offer free private whios guard and they offer free Private SSLs for this month.

Only free for the first year - then they charge $2.88 a year thereafter. From their website:


"Get one year WhoisGuard subscription (Worth $2.88) Absolutely FREE with every new domain name registration or transfer. With an already very low price for the domain, this is an incredible deal."