whois record etiquette Options

[Nicola]

I read somewhere that you're "supposed" to provide contact information on your whois record. Is that true? - is it bad etiquette to make the records private?

[pandy]

You mean when you pay your registrar extra for "private registration", "domain by proxy" or whatever they call it? No, that's fine. Just their email and so on instead of yours in the WHOIS. You are still reachable though the registrar that will forward any communications to you.

What's bad is providing fake information in the WHOIS.

[Nicola]

No, I don't mean anything extra, just the regular "privacy settings on/off."

[pandy]

What is that then? Doesn't it make it so their details appear in the WHOIS instead of yours?

[Nicola]

What is that then? Doesn't it make it so their details appear in the WHOIS instead of yours?

No, it makes no contact details appear at all: no personal names, no addresses, no emails, etc. I had it set to private, then I read this thing about "should have contact details," then I considered the whole issue and decided making it public is a good idea for many reasons, so now I have it set to public anyway - so don't worry if you don't know the answer or if I'm not making sense, it's all good.

[pandy]

What does it say in the WHOIS then? It must say something.

Do you mind saying the domain name? I'm interested to see this.

[Nicola]

Well, I have it set to "privacy settings off" now, so it looks just like anyone else's. Before, when I had "privacy settings on," it listed the registration and renewal dates, the registrar name and number, the registrant number (no name), and the name servers.

[pandy]

Yes, that's what I'm saying. Your registrar's contact details insted of yours, that is, in the places yours are now. That's perfectly fine.

If your registrar offers this for free, I'm interested myself. Which registrar do you use?

[Nicola]

Oh, I see what you mean (although it's not like the registrar's contact info. was provided when it was set to private: just their name, Netfirms, and their number, 978850, though obviously anyone could easily find their contact info from that). Anyway, it's not the registrar that gives me this option, it's the CIRA - I imagine you're not Canadian; I don't know what parallel agency applies to you.

[pandy]

I see. Actually I think we (.se) have something similar. I've never registered a country domain, but I remember something like that from WHOISing. Since CIRA is the authority, if I understand it right, I think it's safe to assume it is as it should. I mean, who would complain and to whom?

[Nicola]

Yeah, that makes sense. Thanks.

[yoyo]

I read somewhere that you're "supposed" to provide contact information on your whois record. Is that true? - is it bad etiquette to make the records private?

No, it is not bad to make private registration..Some domain users do not want to provide their information in public...It is not a rule to make public registration... You can make use of WhoisXY.com to check whether the registrations are made public or private...