On Fri, Jul 12, 2002 at 12:39:07AM -0400, Russell Hires wrote:
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> Hey Everyone...
>
> I'm going through the domain registration process, and in viewing the
> agreement on godaddy.com, there's a clause about your personal information
> (mainly address being put into the whois database, and that it might be sold
> in bulk, etc...and that it was because ICANN said it has to be that way. [1]
> First, ??? I don't get that. Second, for those that have registered domains,
> has it increased the amount of spam you receive or regular unsolicited snail
> mail? Are there any other "unintended consequences" that go with the
> registration?
> Third, I don't mind some of my information being a part of the whois
> database, since this information can be of some importance, however...there's
> privacy concerns...
>
You're never going to get around the privacy issue on registrations. The
database is and needs to remain public, including the names, addresses
and emails of those who register domains. It's the same thing as having
a physical address. You get junk snail mail because people can at least
get hold of your address, even if they don't know you actually live
there.
The only way I'd know if I was getting more spam from this would be if I
gave a "trick" email address for my registrations. Otherwise, spam to my
email address could be coming from anywhere.
What I do get is snail mail from registrars other than the ones I use,
sneakily encouraging me to renew my domains with them (which of course
would _transfer_ the domains to their registration).
The best way I know of to set up a "trick" address is to buy a domain
and get it hosted somewhere. Set up your main email address there (as
low as $7/month in some cases). Then set up the account so that anything
that's not a valid user under that domain forwards to you. For example,
my email address is paulf@quillandmouse.com. There are two other email
accounts under that domain: nancyf and staff. If I give someone the
email address bogus@quillandmouse.com, and they email something to it,
it will forward to me. But I'll be able to see that the To: was not to
my actual email address. For registrations, you could do something like
registrations@rhires.com.
Paul
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