innacurate domain whois?

[disgust]

I'm wondering about this from two angles.

1) I tried to contact someone to give them an offer for a domain, but the contact info wasn't accurate... is there really much of anything I can do?

2) if it's that easy to just have innaccurate info and get away with it, what happens if I change my contact info on domains to be something not-quite-real, to avoid contact/spam/etc? I'd like my info to remain private on some domains but 10$ a year (godaddy's service) for each domain doesn't sound all that great

[Teknorat]

1: There's not much you can do- if you're really desperate try contacting the registrar.

2: Provided you give the registrar your correct details you can put whatever for Whois information. All of my domains have fake names/addresses/numbers because I value my privacy.

[davezan]

There's not much you can do for domain names that have inaccurate WHOIS info.
Only the registrar can do something about it, but they won't even tell you if
you're especially a third party.

You CAN input fake information on your domain's WHOIS if you wish. But you run
the risk of having it shut down, or worse deleted due to breach of contract.

Another option is to switch to another registrar that allows you to input 2 sets of
contact data, one for the WHOIS and another for internal purposes that's not
shown to the public at all.

[disgust]

assuming you input "fake data," do you get some sort of warning before it's shut down..?

[davezan]

Your registrar will attempt to notify you via email, snail mail, even by phone if they
will. They'll give you at least 1 week, 2 at most, to correct and conform.