The privacy of domain name ownership has been a hot topic recently. Many domain name owners use third parties "Privacy protection" gold "Proxy registration" services to mask your true identity. Domain name privacy is like having an unlisted phone number, which is not available in any phone book or online database. This means that when doing a WHOIS lookup, your domain name registrant information appears with masked or pseudo information that belongs to a mail or email forwarding service. This article is about the legality of masking the identity of ownership of your domain name.
Does the privacy service become proprietary?
The owner of a domain name can be identified by the domain’s WHOIS records. The registrant information is to clearly indicate the name, address, email address and contact number of the owner of the domain name. But when a privacy service is activated, you cannot see them. Therefore, an important question that arises is whether the person named as Registrant is the de facto owner.
In a famous case of cyber occupation of SolidHost v. NameCheap, the latter was a privacy protection provider, who had their contact details mentioned as the owner of the domain name. Solid Host insisted that they reveal the true identity of the domain owner, which they rejected. Solid Host sued NameCheap in California. In a tentative motion, the court held that NameCheap, by listing itself as the owner of a disputed domain name, was contributing to cyber occupation, although the actual owner could be a different person, for whom NameCheap only had the name. domain in trust. This judgment was met with a bit of criticism and two pence from most people.
In another case, where the Registrar of the Domain Name went bankrupt and was still listed as Registrant of the domain, the court ordered the company’s litigating partners to disclose the domain ownership information and hand over the details to ICANN, which would then facilitate the transfer. and move the domains to a new registrar.
What are the legitimate uses of domain name privacy protection?
Domain name privacy is important in many cases, especially for legitimate business purposes where the company wants to darkly purchase domain names to protect them for future product launches or internal business purposes. Non-governmental agencies, such as news stations, investigative journalists, whistleblowers, and even researchers, may want to remain anonymous while reserving domain names and may want to hide their identity for their own safety.
So is it legal?
The ICANN website states that: "Privacy and proxy services are outside the scope of the 2001 RAA and 2009 RAA. To determine who is involved in a domain name behind a proxy or privacy service, see the service provider’s terms of service. If you have a complaint related to a law or regulation, you may wish to refer the matter to the appropriate law enforcement agency within your jurisdiction or seek legal advice."
It goes on to state that: " The 2013 RAA requires that privacy and proxy service providers: Disclose the terms of service (including prices) on their website and / or the registrar’s website and abide by those terms; Post an abuse / violation point of contact; Disclose business contact information on its website and / or on the registrar’s website; and post and comply with the terms of service and description of procedures on its website and / or the registrar’s website, such as handling reports of abuse or trademark infringement, handling communications, termination conditions of service , conditions of publication of Whois data and access to support services."
The deciding factor is when ICANN mentions that "Please note that displaying privacy or proxy protected Whois data is not in itself inaccurate. File a complaint only if you are unable to contact the domain name holder due to inaccurate privacy or proxy service Whois data." This means that only if you cannot trace the true identity of the owner after due diligence verification, only then can you file a complaint with ICANN and they will attempt to trace the true owner.
