How fair is it having Private domain registration? Shouldn't ICANN look into the issue? As SEs are now believed to take into account the Historical data associated with a domain, such domains shall be imparted some kind of penalty for hiding information.
How fair is it having Private domain registration?
The correct question is, can we make changes to the whois rules, so that hiding registrant's identity is excluded? The answer is NO, NO, and again NO! Because you can not ban someone from hiring a lawyer to represent their web identity! In this case, the Web is just like the real life out there. If somebody wants privacy they can always find a way to achieve it. The only question here is how much would it cost?
So, if you continue to oppose private registrations, you are actually trying to make money flow to lawyers instead to domain registrars. You should know, of course, that such a solution to private registrations would be 100s if not 1000s times more expensive compared to the cost of what registrars offer currently. Are you a lobbyist of the body representing lawyers financial interests?!
From a search engine's perspective it's about building an index that is seen by end users as useful and consistent.
Domain registration data can give a good indication of how trustworthy a business might be. Its not always going to give the right impression but its another indicator when assessing risk and making a judgement.
If you hide your real name from the WHOIS data, search engines and other businesses can not give you extra bonus for being in low risk area for x years.
At least one forum is banning domain sales where a privacy service is being used.
If you hide your real name from the WHOIS data, search engines and other businesses can not give you extra bonus for being in low risk area for x years.
The point is you can hide your identity by many different ways. A simple way is to authorize a lawyer to represent you before quasi-judicial or administrative agencies of government and act as trustee, guardian, or executor. You can also hide your identity by creating an offshore company. In all these cases search engines would not treat your registration as a private registration, right? So, I'll refer to my previous post - the question is where money goes - to domain registrars or the lawyers?
Paying to domain registrar a couple of dollars is much preferable than paying several hundreds (minimum) to a lawyer to the same effect...
This isn't a morality thing. It's a privacy thing.
Single females, for example, should have the option to withhold their names, home and e-mail addresses, and phone numbers from anyone with an Internet connection.
So, too, should people working in law enforcement, psych, or any other profession where having one's 'clients' show up on one's doorstep would be neither wise nor safe. And the elderly who tend to be too trusting and thus make easy marks. And you, too.
-- "Right or wrong?"
That's just silly. This is more phone book than Bible.
Do you think that unlisted phone numbers are unethical? Amoral? Or a published first initial and a last name but no street address? Or a wife 'using' her husband's name because he opened the account? Or a roommate 'using' their roomie/account holder's name? Or a teenager at home 'using' their parent/billpayer's name?
Should all those evil-doers be penalized for not disclosing their personal info?
-- "The world wide web is open and shared."
Lovely. And so very naive.
The Internet, just like the real world, is not quite one big, happy, communal family full of trustworthy people. It's actually full of people who are only too happy to do you, your computer, your network, your bank account, your credit rating, indeed your very identity, significant damage.
In the last three minutes my personal machine's firewall blocked seven attacks -- from within my own ISP's network. The preceding hour brought 17 attacks from a telco half a country away in Houston. I get e-mail phished day and night, and my sites get log-spammed and scraped and attacked every single day. Our co-located mail-, name- and web servers withstand tens of thousands of attacks from all corners of the Internet every few hours. And that's just a flea on an elephant's rump compared to commercial servers.
Yet those are the same jes' plain folks you think should know everyone's names, home and e-addresses, and phone numbers. Or else...
-- "Consequences?"
C'mon! To those who, incredibly, think desiring privacy is somehow wrong, somehow worthy of punishment, think of the real world. Think of the single females you know, or your pals in sensitive jobs, or your elderly dad.
Even better, think of you being forced to wear your full name, home and e-addresses and phone number on a big sign 24/7, or forced to paint your personal info on your car, or else you'll be punished.
I can only hope you'll then rethink the twisted 'ethic' of punishing personal privacy.
I don't see any reason why should search engines penalize private registrations.It not a case of penalizing more a case of not being able to transfer extra confidence. For example spammmers can use it to hide linking patterns to improve their rankings.
Would you give you credit card details to a site that doesn't have a physical address on it?
Paying to domain registrar a couple of dollars is much preferable than paying several hundreds (minimum) to a lawyer to the same effect..It's cheaper and easier so more people do it.
Those that visit websites should have the right to decide if they want to vist a website or purchase something from someone who hides their registration info.
Would you give you credit card details to a site that doesn't have a physical address on it?
A P.O. Box would also be iffy -- and I even use one. A toll-free number a plus.
Point is, the To Buy Or Not To Buy (or even visit) choices should be ours to make, not decisions forced upon us by any body.
Basically Peter stated my POV (& a heckuva lot more pithily, thanks:)
Those that hide their registration info should be free to judge for themselves if it is the right thing for them to do.
Those that visit websites should have the right to decide if they want to vist a website or purchase something from someone who hides their registration info.
Users are free to judge and so are search engines - They have a right in their algorithm to say some sites are more trustworthy than others.
Hmm. If any SE cast aspersions on a site's credibility, particularly to the site registrant's financial detriment, merely because of its owner's legal choice to not disclose personal info to everyone on the planet, methinks that SE's legal department might have a defamation problem on its hands, and their Marketing department a PR one.
But really, isn't this all so much exercise? (About which I'm going to stop getting exercised any reply now.)
If anyone wants to offer proof that SEs, etc., are discriminating again-- erm, evaluating sites on the basis of private registration, why play hide the ball? Unless, of course, those engaging in such skulldugger-- erm, applying privacy-related algos/evals prefer their IDs and/or actions to be -- private?
Would you give you credit card details to a site that doesn't have a physical address on it?
I avoided purchasing from someone that does not have a physical address on their website and it does not match their WHOIS information. There are plenty of people to buy from that do not hide this information.
