Whois Privacy Creates Suspicion — Domain Name
Using a private registration for a web site creates suspicion.
I was driving through my neighborhood today when I saw a sign with the domain name “StopLake35.com” on it. That caught my attention. When I got home I checked out the web site.
StopLake35.com is dedicated to stopping the development of a planned 180 boat marina just down the road from my house on Lake Austin. (35 is a busy highway that runs through Austin). The site suggests that the marina will lead to more traffic and decreased safety on the lake. It also asks people to not do business with the two developers of the marina.
The web site doesn’t mention who is behind StopLake35.com, so I checked the whois record. Alas, it is a private registration through GoDaddy’s patented Domains by Proxy.
That makes me suspicious. Is the site just run by a concerned neighbor? Or maybe it’s a rival developer. Perhaps it’s a firm with a competing marina that doesn’t want the competition. Or the marina’s next door neighbor who doesn’t want the noise.
Maybe I’m just thinking the worst. It could simply be a concerned neighbor who was cross-sold while registering his domain at GoDaddy. Following all, he was told that a private registration “protects you from domain-related spam, identity theft and fraud, “data miners”, privacy intrusions and more.” For $10, who wouldn’t save themselves from identity theft?
But I must assume the worst. That’s why anyone who creates a legitimate web site ought to not use a whois privacy service. If I’m regarding to order a product from a web site and I’m at all concerned regarding its legitimacy, the first thing I’ll do is check the whois record. If it’s protected I’ll assume it’s a scam and abandon my shopping cart.
Whois privacy has its place, and that’s not for a legitimate web site.
