On a mailing list I run, we’ve been discussing good places to register domain names & host websites cheaply. One person had this to say about Hover:

Hover is the way domain registration SHOULD be. It takes about 5 seconds to register a name and they have a sweet control panel to do redirects, subdomains and other fun stuff. They NEVER upsell and perhaps most importantly, they have automatic private registration for no additional cost. i.e. your home phone and address WON’T show up in a WHOIS search. It’s also a piece of cake to transfer domains in and out and lock and unlock your registrations.

I’ve never used Hover myself, although I know who have & they’ve been very happy with them (myself, I prefer Namecheap). But the bit about “automatic private registration” made me decide to respond. Here’s the response:

I like everything you said, James, but I’m 100% against hiding data from WHOIS lookups. To me, that breaks the Internet.

If you can’t look up data about who owns a domain, you lose the ability to find out a lot of valuable info, & that’s a problem.

  • ICANN (the organization that is ultimately behind ALL domain registrations) states that you MUST have info about the registrar available. Wikipedia explains what you’re doing when you use a “privacy” service: “Although some registrars offer private registrations, by which the contact information of the registrar is shown, the ICANN rules state that in these cases the registrar or the provider of this service is the lessor of the domain.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whois#Criticism) Let that sink in. If you “protect” your domain’s “privacy”, then GoDaddy or Hover or Namecheap actually owns your domain! You really want GoDaddy having control of your domain? Not me.

  • Knowing the owner helps you validate the contents of a domain, for instance. Not sure about the veracity of the content on a website? Look up the owner of the domain. That can be incredibly helpful. For instance, the other day I ran across a website that features “news articles” with lovely headlines like “The Mystery Of Barack Obama Continues” (the birth certificate nonsense) & “Is Obama Stupid & Lazy?”. By doing a WHOIS lookup, I could find out who owns the domain: http://whois.domaintools.com/westernjournalism.com.

  • Want to buy a website? Look up the owner & contact them. If that’s not available, you’re either out of luck or you have to go through the registrar, who’s going to slow things down & try to get a cut, I’m sure.

  • If your domain is for a business, then being able to see who is behind the business is important. All the other data about your business is open to the public - why is ownership of the domain name hidden? Why would a legitimate, public business hide such info?

  • Does it really prevent spam? I seriously doubt it. Every email address is already known by somebody, if it’s actually used. If you’re that concerned, get a free Hotmail or Gmail address, for cryin’ out loud! And I use my standard email on all domains - something like 25 at last count - & I see no extra spam. Of course, I wouldn’t know, since I use Gmail, so I almost never see spam anyway!

  • Likewise, if you’re worried about using your home address for some reason, use a different one. Your office. Or a PO Box!

  • Phone number a problem? Get one from Skype or a free one from Google Voice.

  • Hiding domain name info is a “service” that registrars like to push because (a) some can charge for it, (b) it makes it yet more difficult to transfer a domain away because showing your registration info is yet one more task you have to do, & (c) it makes them seem like they care about their customers’ privacy.

  • It can hurt you. Anti-spam organizations (& trust me, you do NOT want to get listed as a spammer somewhere) supposedly treat hidden domain info as suspicious when they’re researching a domain to decide whether or not to add it to dreaded black list of spammers (I’d like more proof of this, myself).

  • There are a tiny few cases where hiding domain name ownership is justified. If an abused spouse registered a domain name & wants to keep it hidden from their former spouse, then sure. Or something similar. But c’mon - how often is that going to be the case in real life? If it is, then by all means, hide your domain; otherwise, if you own a domain name, have the cojones to stand by it in the real world.

Anyway, there’s some food for thought.