
Ask HN: Any reason to get WHOISGuard? - jstreebin
All I've found in the past is this makes it a pain in the ass to kill the domain. Any good reason to use this? That is, if you're doing something you don't mind your name attached to.
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jpau
Really, it is a trade-off between the advantages (displaying professionalism
(openness = trust = professionalism); offering opportunities to be contacted)
and disadvantages (lots of spam, just like being in the phonebook).

By making it easy to contact you through your website, you can directly affect
how advantageous it is to keep WHOIS records public. Likewise, you can
mitigate the disadvantages by having in place efficient methods of dealing
with spam.

I offer two personal anecdotes.

Years ago, when I was maybe 13 or 14 (7-8 years ago), I setup a simple image
hosting website. My WHOIS information was not guarded.

My spam filter was pretty good, and I didn't mind - keeping in mind that this
was a relatively tiny website - deleting maybe the single spam message a week
(simply classifiable by their headlines). I did receive a spam phonecall (!)
from some no-name domain company, and that did freak me out a little.

But I also received an important email - not through the website's form -
offering to purchase the website for $400. Considering that the name was worth
nothing (something like imagehoster4u.net or w/e), the script was generic, the
design horrible and the traffic minimal w/ horrible RPM, $400 was a great
offer that proved genuine (big money for me then!).

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nmridul
If it is a personal website, who-is-privacy is ok. If business, then better
have the details there as anyways you need to provide these details one way or
the other on your website. Normally before I purchase a service or even
provide my email id to a New service (read stranger), I check if the domain is
legit. If its behind a who is privacy, I would hesitate in giving my info to
them. But that's just me.

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redegg
If you don't mind your contact information (potentially residential address)
out in the wild, I would suggest guarding your WHOIS information.

Doxing, increased email spam, and spam snail mail are all reasons I chose to
protect my info.

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pasbesoin
If you don't have a business address (just home), and you don't think it will
harm your business to do so (if the domain name pertains to such), you can get
a P.O. Box (in the U.S.). Just remember to actually check it reasonably
frequently, just in case.

You can also get a "street address" by purchasing a similar "P.O. Box" service
from a private party, e.g. The UPS Store. Although it's pretty easy to figure
out what such an address is, i.e. don't expect to "fool" anyone who takes a
halfway serious look at your address. It does make receiving non-USPS packages
possible.

I tend to favor not listing my personal address, if for no other reason than
you just never know what problem(s) might show up unanticipated.

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jstreebin
Thanks! Looks like beyond spam/privacy/pain in the ass to get rid of domain,
I'm not missing much

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noirman
Yes. Most of the time it comes free from the registrar (NameCheap).

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jpau
Could you please elaborate?

While the service being free means that there is no barrier for usage, this is
not itself a reason to use it.

The OP stated that he - hypothetically - does not mind his name attached
publicly to the domain. Can you please provide some reasons as to why he
should care and, thus, why "yes", he should use it?

