Misleading Privacy Services - Identity Protect limited

ian · Nov 20, 2014

Having just spoke to a mate of mine who owns a .co.uk domain name, he's used a privacy service to hide his information because he thought that was the only option. He's an incredibly smart guy so I thought I'd have a look and try to understand why he was of that opinion and it didn't take me long to realise why.

Using 123-reg as an example because that is where his domain is registered (sure others are the same), the page on privacy suggests that all domains show full name, address, telephone number and email address in the whois data unless using their service (which might be the case for some extensions):

https://www.123-reg.co.uk/domain-names/whois-privacy.shtml

What they fail to mention at any point is that you can opt out of all this data (except name) if your .co.uk is registered to a private individual.

It is amazing how far these companies will go to sell services that aren't necessarily needed. Even more ironic when the banner on the same page states "our prices are transparent as we are"!!!

sdsinc · Nov 22, 2014

They are so transparent that they've been hacked

And their customers must now be more "transparent" too.

murph · Nov 23, 2014

I noticed 123-reg offering privacy services on a new .co.uk purchase the other day, didn't know this was possible for .uk's (other than the opt out as an individual)

jasman · Nov 23, 2014

murph said:
I noticed 123-reg offering privacy services on a new .co.uk purchase the other day, didn't know this was possible for .uk's (other than the opt out as an individual)

Well they are flouting the rules because since the membership voting system changed a few years back, the big registrars' combined vote dominates the rest of the membership's vote, so they have the power to allow or deny Nominet's strategy. Under the present system the rest of us are irrelevant. Hence the Nominet management need to keep the big registrars and only the big registrars happy. Hopefully one day the membership will wake up and see that what was once a democracy has become an oligarchy and demand that the voting system becomes fair.

namealot · Nov 23, 2014

They also fail to mention you can use any name you want? Pretty sure the registrant doesn't even need to be human lol

Skinner · Nov 23, 2014

Wasn't it 123-reg et al who was offering to "catch" your .uk for you implying urgency ? and also those who were transferring dropping names without consent, and the list goes on. However when you hold about 40%+ of the total registry, you can kinda do what you like.

Even if nominet grew some teeth, and nuked UIG, would any other registrar or even nominet be able to handle the load created by potentially a million new customers?

ian · Dec 9, 2014

invincible said:
They offer it but the legal registrant becomes the privacy service as far as Nominet are concerned. t.co.uk sold for £39k according to data at Exacts.co.uk and it's currently registered to Identity Protect Limited (123-reg's privacy protection). Bit of a gamble in my humble opinion, transferring a £39k+ domain name into the name of a company you have no control over given how Nominet view the registrant field.

I had wondered about that, seems a bit risky to me too on such an expensive domain.

Edwin · Dec 9, 2014

invincible said:
They offer it but the legal registrant becomes the privacy service as far as Nominet are concerned. t.co.uk sold for £39k according to data at Exacts.co.uk and it's currently registered to Identity Protect Limited (123-reg's privacy protection). Bit of a gamble in my humble opinion, transferring a £39k+ domain name into the name of a company you have no control over given how Nominet view the registrant field.

I wonder if this could be used against the registrant in a DRS to establish a "pattern of behaviour"?

In other words, since legally Identity Protect Limited IS the registrant as far as Nominet are concerned, if there's a "naughty" registrant registering a bunch of obviously cybersquatty domains using that privacy service, then all domains with "owner" Identity Protect Limited become exposed even if behind the scenes they're registered to different parties.