Telnic privacy Has Telnic created any privacy system for dot tel domain names yet? Here is the issue when people buy dot tels and display their info sometimes they don't necessarily want to display their last name. Examples: Nick.tel Craig.tel There are websites grabbing the first and last name and putting this information together creating a profile. So when future employers, friends, stalkers etc. type the first and last name into a search engine they can also see the dot tel data. This can be very misleading to people purchasing dot tels when they think they are setting up something more private than they are. http://www.telnic.org/whois.html?domain=nick (Go to this link and you can find out "nick.tel's" last name) http://www.telnic.org/whois.html?domain=craig (Go to this link and you can find out "craig.tel's" last name) A search for Justin Hayward and I can link below, that will give me his .tel personal information. http://www.websitevalue.us/www/justin.tel :cool: |
Ron - Natural persons (i.e. individuals) may opt not to publish their details in the whois database. Your domain registrar should give you this option (free of charge) through their domain management console. Telnic is the only global registry able to offer this opt-out (they had to fight for it), due to stringent UK/EU privacy laws. There is also a special service to retrieve information from the whois database for legitimate purposes, pursuant with those laws. |
@wibblenut Good to see that Telnic is moving in that direction. So I have two examples and questions. In the following whois data for Microsoft.tel, I'm assuming they have not chosen to do an individual listing. As can been seen the Administration contact is 'Domain Administrator' which is not a real name. See http://www.telnic.org/whois.html?domain=microsoft Is this contact information correct? Could Microsoft lose this name for not providing a real contact name? My second example is Telnic.tel. In this case Telnic has elected to go with the individual account route. In this case a first name was populated but the last name wasn't populated. Is this allowed? Can another governing body take domains that don't show accurate first and last contact names away? Can an individual hold on to his domain name if the last name isn't populated? If so what if an individual populated First Name: 'Domain', Last Name 'Administrator' See http://www.telnic.org/whois.html?domain=telnic Burning questions. Ron |
Ron, I don't want to muddy the waters, but my limited understanding is: that if the rules are not adhered to any third party is able to start proceedings to have that name stripped from the current owner. I'm sure wiser heads will elaborate. Quote "This is not the first time this kind of thing has happened. Back in 1999 Microsoft forgot to renew passport.com that was needed so that users could sign onto Hotmail. Michael Chaney used his own credit card to renew the domain, and was rewarded by Microsoft with a cheque for $500 and a new copy of Visual Studio 6.0." |
Ron - whois privacy for individuals has been available from the very beginning. Just use Google and you'll find some reports regarding the Information Commissioner's notice on the matter, and the subsequent negotiations with ICANN from around 2007 I believe. As for the name given in whois records, in the case of an organisation, I don't think it matters whether it's an actual person or the name of a department, so long as the information provided is accurate. If it isn't, a complaint could be made against the registrant through ICANN's WDPRS (Whois Data Problem Report) process. Hope this helps. |