Finding the websites owner

[Jon12345]

If you use a domains by proxy service, can someone find out:

1. Where the site is hosted?

2. Who has opened the hosting account?

[encyclo]

A "domains by proxy" service hides the true owner of the domain name behind another company's name. However, web hosting is separate from the domain name: your DNS records for that domain name will (obviously) point to the hosted site. Even if you don't use the hosting company's nameservers, you can deduce the hosting company from the site's IP address.

The barrier starts there: the hosting company's customer records are confidential, except obviously to the appropriate law enforcement authorities with a warrant. If you buy hosting from a reseller, you add another level: the ISP sells a hosting service to a company, and that company resells it on to you. The IP address would identify the ISP, the ISP only can identify the reseller, and the reseller only can identify the site owner - always in the case of an appropriate warrant.