Does WHOIS privacy protection constitute bad faith?

In a recent dispute over domain ShoeZone.com, arbitrator WIPO declared the owner guilty of bad faith and ordered the name be transferred to a UK trademark holder. This was in part due to his use of WHOIS privacy protection to hide his contact details:

…the Respondent’s use of the privacy service is at least consistent with bad faith. A respondent’s use of a privacy service is likely to cause a complainant some delay while it endeavors to ascertain details of the true respondent to its prospective complaint, and the respondent continues to derive click-through revenue during that period of delay.

This is the first time privacy protection has ever been ruled as bad faith. While the service does hide the user’s contact information from the WHOIS database, it can be revealed by the privacy service provider in legal and ownership disputes, usually only after receiving a subpoena.

Cybersquatters and other violators of domain ethics often do use WHOIS privacy as a shield for their actions, but the majority of people using this service do so legitimately. To mark it as bad faith is akin to arresting someone for removing their name from the phone book.

Source | The Domains

Photo | Flickr

Hide your identity with WHOIS privacy protection

When you register a domain, you are required to supply your registrar with accurate contact details. These are used not only for clerical purposes and to prevent fraud, but also, per ICANN rules, must be added to the official WHOIS database.

WHOIS is essentially a giant phonebook for the web. Enter any domain, and it will report the name of its owner as well his/her address, telephone number, and email. This publicly available data makes it easy to contact a website owner, but also opens the door for unwanted solicitation.

In my case, I receive at least two pieces of junk mail per week in my mailbox related to one of my domain names. I’ve also received phone calls from advertisers asking if I would like to buy their products for my business, using a domain as my company name.

To avoid this hassle, nearly all registrars offer WHOIS privacy protection for a nominal fee. This useful service hides your name and phone number, but includes a special email address where people can contact you if they need to. For me, the added cost to my yearly domain registration fee is worth the peace of mind privacy protection provides.

Photo | melodi2

Free DNS Tools for Web Hosting

Inevitably, there are times when you need to do troubleshooting of your web and email services, or you simply need to make sure all of your network services are operating correctly. For years, I have relied on one free service to handle most of my DNS needs. It is called DNSstuff.com. They offer mail server analysis, DNS reports, SPAM database lookup, traceroute, Whois lookup, reverse DNS lookup, ping, Internet speed test, and much more.

With their full DNS report, you can enter a domain name and find out the name severs and other DNS information. It will also tell you if there are any problems with a particular domain’s DNS setup. Unfortunately, many of their services are no longer free, but there are many other services out there that still offer free advanced DNS tools.

Among the free ones are freednslookup.net, rrlookup.com, and samdns.com. If you need to know the location of an IP address, these tools will help you. If you need to know who owns a domain, you can find that out too. You can even lookup specific DNS records, such as A, MX, CNAME, and NS. Regardless of which tool you choose, it is very important to check these features before you have problems to help prevent them and whenever you have connection issues with your website.

Photo source: SXC

School Prayer Controversy Heats Up

In recent news, two school teachers at Pace High School in Florida, USA are under investigation for publicly promoting their religion. The news has caused an upsurge in searches for the school’s website and sites related to the controversy. The school’s website can be found at the domain: pacehighschool.net. If someone types in pacehighschool.com, however, he will be met with quite a surprise.

The latter domain points to a pornographic website, and their Whois information is hidden. The only indication of who might own the domain is that they registered it with a Canadian registrar. Parents and others looking for the school’s actual website have complained, but officials of the Santa Rosa school district and even the Santa Rosa County Sheriff claim there is nothing they can do.

Under the UDRP established by ICANN, individuals and organizations have the right to contest domains that are confusingly similar to their trademarks. But it is unlikely that the school district registers trademarks of the names of their schools. Nevertheless, they could still file a complaint against the owners of pacehighschool.com. It would seem at this point, the school district has nothing to lose by trying and much to lose by doing nothing.

Source: Santa Rosa Press Gazette

ICANN Revokes Accreditation of Three Registrars

ICANN announced yesterday that they had sent notices to three domain registrars informing them that their accreditation would not be renewed. According to the documents available on ICANN’s website, the registrars have violated the conditions of the RAA (Registrar Accreditation Agreement). The reasons and details of the violations are explained in each letter.

The first registrar, based in New York, failed to provide accessible Whois information on their domains, a service required by the RAA. ICANN sent a letter to them on July 17, but the registrar failed to respond. Since then, they have activated their Whois service but still do not have all of the required information available. The second registrar failed to escrow gTLD registration, which is apparently a database containing certain domain data. They failed to submit the data and did not respond to ICANN’s requests. They also failed to pay their ICANN fees.

The final registrar also failed to escrow gTLD and pay their ICANN accreditation fees. In all three cases, ICANN informed the registrars that their accreditation will be allowed to expire, but they can renew if they remedy the problems. Assuming that does not happen in time, ICANN will begin procedures to transition the domains from the non-compliant registrars.

Source: ICANN
Photo: Flickr

Should falsifying domain contact information be illegal?

Few Americans know that it is in fact illegal to to falsify personal details when registering a domain. With the enacting of the Truth in Domain Names Act in 2003, it became a crime to “knowingly and with the intent to defraud” provide false contact information to a domain registrar. Offenders are punishable by up to 5 years in prison and/or fines.

The law was enacted with the goal of protecting Internet users and to fight child pornography online. To help support their case, the bill’s sponsors gave the example of John Zuccarini, a notorious typosquatter who faced several lawsuits for his cyber crime. However, those behind the lawsuits were unsure if the name– obtained from the WHOIS database– was even accurate.

A number of organizations, including the ACLU, have criticized the law for being over ambiguous and violating civil liberties, most notably the right to privacy. While I think it is important to keep the Internet honest, I don’t see how this law is doing much good. It does nothing to impose regulation at the registrar level and is designed to be enforced after the fact. As in the case of Zuccarini, even if false contact data is provided, how can the authorities track down the real registrant?

According to one estimate, 10% of all domain registrations are under false names. That seems like an awfully high number. My guess is most of these people do not know about WHOIS privacy services and are simply trying to protect their identities. Perhaps this situation would be better handled by registrars. A much more effective deterrent would be to force registrars to verify domain contact data and then purge registrations if the details do not match up. But of course, nothing will ever be that easy.

Sources | JCIL & iBLIS

Beckstrom hired by ICANN, suddenly corrects WHOIS data

ICANN officially announced today that Rod Beckstrom will be taking Paul Twomey’s place as CEO.

According to ICANN Board Chairman Peter Dengate Thrush:

Rod Beckstrom has exactly the sort of strong personal and technical background that ICANN needs, as we enter a period of unprecedented growth and change for the Internet.

The appointment was met with praise from technology leaders. Vint Cerf, an ICANN supporter widely considered to be the father of the Internet, stated that his “experience in industry and government equip him for this global and very challenging job.”
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Beckstrom caught faking WHOIS data

You may remember that Rod Beckstrom is the leading candidate for ICANN’s soon-to-be-vacant CEO position. While he may honestly desire the job, his conduct concerning his own domain name hasn’t been quite so forthcoming.

Blog Domain Name Wire reports about a commenter who looked up Beckstrom’s domain, Beckstrom.com, in a WHOIS database.

The administrative contact information is as follows:

Administrative Contact:
Private, Private private@private.com
Private
Private, CA 11111
US
111 111-1111 fax: (650) 618 0423

I previously reported that Beckstrom has no experience professionally with domains. Now it seems he knows absolutely nothing about them. It is against ICANN policy to falsify contact information and registrants who do so can sometimes lose their names for it.

And besides, privacy protection is available from all major registrars for under £10 per year. Wouldn’t someone who has worked as a CEO before be able to afford it? This guy is either really cheap or a complete idiot. My money is on the latter.