

Righthaven.com Taken Down for Invalid Whois - norova
http://www.domainnamenews.com/legal-issues/righthavencom-invalid-whois/9232

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ltamake
While I am in NO WAY defending Righthaven (they had it coming, really), these
draconian domain rules are ridiculous. Having to pay £5 (or whatever it is
now) to hide your personal information on your domain is truly evil.

But obviously Righthaven doesn't care about their domain because if I recall
correctly, GoDaddy sends three notifications before they suspend your domain.

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lsc
>Having to pay £5 (or whatever it is now) to hide your personal information on
your domain is truly evil.

Eh, when the domain name system was set up, it was designed with businesses
and academics in mind. People who don't expect or want to be anonymous. The
idea was that individuals would get services through a provider's domain, so
the whole system assumes less privacy than one would expect out of a product
one uses to run one's own email.

Really, I would personally be happy to give my customers a discount if they
were willing to post contact info publicly. I mean, I wouldn't force the
issue, because I know a lot of my customers really do want privacy, but my
costs for hosting someone who says "hey, this is who I am, send abuse
complaints to me" through rwhois on the IP or the like, and who handles those
complaints without my help are lower than my costs otherwise.

I mean, I certainly understand and think it's okay that some people want to be
anonymous, but you need to understand that you put yourself in a more
expensive group by wanting that anonymity.

Now, is that 5 pounds per customer worth of 'more expensive' for a domain
registrar? probably not. Abuse expenses are a little like insurance... 99% of
your customers won't get any complaints, or the complaints they get will be
resolved painlessly, but a few will be quite painful and eat a lot of time and
money. (unless you take the 'kick off everyone who complains' approach.)

I haven't implemented such a 'discount for using your own realname and your
own abuse contact' yet, in part because I'm afraid customers will see it as
anti-privacy, so I'm still feeling out the idea, I'm just saying, there is an
economic justification for it.

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caseysoftware
As much as RightHaven might have been asshats, this sort of precedent concerns
me.. I've had domain information that has been _years_ out of date before I
realized it.

I wonder what degree of "correctness" they need.. if I leave off an apartment
number, is that bad enough? If I renew for 3 years and don't bother updating
in there, can I get shut down?

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jsprinkles
Worry about your e-mail address and keep it functional and responsive. They
don't care about an apartment number.

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caseysoftware
But technically an apartment number being wrong is also "invalid whois
information." If it's just selective enforcement, that's a whole other pain.

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rwmj
The apartment analogy is .. erm "apt". Why do we effectively rent domains, and
not really own them?

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garrettgillas
Uh oh, this could be a bad sign of things to come for grey/black hat SEOs.
Providing invalid WHOIS information is common practice among SEOs because it
can help boost rankings when it appears like all your interlinked sites don't
look like they are owned by the same person. If this is the beginning of a
crackdown, there will be more drama to come.

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chc
There's no evidence of a crackdown, or even if there were, the fact that they
were able to nab a rather notorious troll doesn't mean black hats who have
been keeping their heads down will be vulnerable.

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thehodge
Wow, I get emails every week about updating my details but this is the first
time I've ever seen a domain taken off because of it

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hsmyers
If the email sent doesn't bounce, then it doesn't necessarily raise a flag.

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jsprinkles
Wonder what was invalid. E-mail bouncing, maybe?

    
    
        Last Updated on: 12-Feb-11
    
        Administrative Contact:
            Gibson, Steven  rgibson@righthaven.com
            Righthaven LLC
            9960 West Cheyenne Avenue
            Suite 210
            Las Vegas, Nevada 89129
            United States
            +1.7025275900      Fax -- +1.7025275909
    

Slow down, there is no bad precedent here since black/gray SEOs know the risk
when they falsify WHOIS data. Domain seizure for falsifying WHOIS has gone on
for a long time. Every registrar reminds you of it constantly and it is your
responsibility to keep it updated. There is not much active checking either
(if any) and in my experience domains are only taken if they are actually
reported through WDPRS and even then it is a long shot.

I dont think GoDaddy would suspend a domain without repeatedly trying to
contact the registrant either and if they do, time to move. Make sure the
e-mail details at your registrar and on your domains actually work, respond to
them, and you should be fine.

This makes a case for not having your domain registration e-mail be handled by
that domain too

