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Registrant Search, is it right or wrong?
November 11th, 2007 by 
Jay Westerdal
A lot of people are asking me to take Registrant Search down. Clearly this tool has a lot of power and people are pissed that it is available. People can abuse the tool and do a lot of investigating that one can argue they shouldn’t be allowed to. So the question I have to ask myself is do I keep it up. I guess the best way to decide is to discuss it openly and see if I can form an opinion that would lead to some action that people are begging for.
I am going to allow anyone to make the case either way in the comments below for removing it or keeping it. Your comments will not be censored but should be factually based. If you can convince me to take it down and you have clear argument why, which is articulated well you may very well convince me to make a change or take it down completely. Here is one of the many comments I received on my blog about it.
Comment from my blog that started this post:
I don’t know if you realize Jay, but your new tool (that tell who owns how many domains) is a major threat to many people’s personal safety from crooks. It is very depressing that someone can get that kind of info about every domainer. Please take a moment to think about the potential devastating impact of such tool or innocent domainers. Why do the entire world need to know which domainer has how many domains. Its no one’s business in my opinion. Your tool may perhaps even be illegal as it invades privacy of people.
Please take it down……its not worth it if because of your tool some domainer or his family is exposed to threats.
I hope you care about the domainer community and just do the right thing.
So should I take it down or keep it? I will post the best argument on both sides and make a call on it. If you don’t like the tool, supply your best argument or forever hold your peace.
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Posted in Registrant Search |
205 Comments »
November 11th, 2007 at 2:33 pm
Jay,
It is really hurting your brand as it put domain owners, your clients, at added risk. Myself, we use privacy on our domains and I would suggest anyone else to do the same.
I would say take it off.
Cheers
Sahar
November 11th, 2007 at 2:45 pm
As we all know domains can be very valuable. In essence you are giving people access to my bank account. For me this is the case as I have almost all my money in domains.
You are telling them how much I am worth. You are making me a target, not only for domain theft, but also for extortion and lawsuits.
Besides from criminals the only people who have a use for this tool are lawyers. Being a multiple domain owner put you at a disadvantage in almost all cases. It doesn’t matter if you have generics or not, you will be labeled a cybersquatter and most judges can’t differentiate between domainers and cybersquatters.
Legit domainers have no use for the tool. If I want a domain or domains I do a whois lookup or a mass whois lookup and contact the owner. I am 100% sure that domainers are not buying this info. The only people buying this info are crooks and lawyers.
This tool is bad news for all domainers and good news for crooks and lawyers.
Lately, I have been fighting more and more battles for generic domains. I am involved in a lawsuit right now where this tool is being used against me. Yes, I own some TM domains, but the domain I am being sued over is generic in my opinion.
I suspect that the vast majority of domainers are like me and have mixed portfolios. What is a TM and what isn’t a TM is often a grey area.
Let all domainers be warned; it is just a matter of time before this tool is used against you.
For example, Frank Schilling is not a cybersquatter he is a domainer, but I bet you could go through his domains and find 100 or 1000 quasi trade marks. A smart lawyer would only place those into evidence and hence be able to paint Frank as a cybersqatter. Believe me this goes a long way in the eyes of a judge.
On anohter note, not everyone lives in a safe country like the US. In the Eastern Europe if you have a lot of money you get targeted, Period, no exceptions believe me I know. Using this tool the mob can figure out exactly what I have in my “bank account.”
Also if I was a domain Hijacker I could use this tool to target the best victims. Almost any email address can be cracked, so why not crack the email of someone who has 1000 great domains. This is a time saver for theives. Or in reverse lets say I crack a email that for a domain I want. I can use your tool to find out what other domains the guy owns.
I guess it comes down to who is paying the bills for you Jay. Is it domainers or lawyers. As a domainer I won’t see you as a friend to the community if this tool stays up.
November 11th, 2007 at 2:46 pm
Well Jay,
I can understand where some people would be concerned about whois privacy issues. But one single whois record is all it takes to make public that persons contact and location so they really should be using some form of whois privacy protection if that’s their concern (and I do believe that can be a legitimate concern for many of us).
You could offer to filter out and not disclose (out of house) certain owners who object to the tool being used on their own domains and info to cover that base.
Actually, I’m more convinced most of the complaints are based on the registrants not willing to disclose the number and the names of the domains and sites they own, run and control. And I can see that point, too. But again that info is available to anyone willing to do the detective work and data mining necessary to find most of it.
I think their main objection is your registrant search tool works so well. And I think they are forgetting all the locally cached data you have built up over the years to arrive at the results and instead believe you can search outside your system in real time to locate all that info.
I think the tool is still something you should make available. I think law enforcement and HomeLand Security should have access to it. They’ll have access to it anyway through the subpenea process. And I would think you would still have it at your disposal even if you took it down publicly.
Finally, I think it’s kinda cool that when someone does a domaintools look up on one of my sites they see I own a large number of other sites. But I hate it when it shows a very large number where a whois privacy service appears as owner. But then, again, that’s good though as it shows whois privacy works there, too.
November 11th, 2007 at 2:47 pm
Agreed with the above. It is a shame you are letting money and profit ruin DomainTools.
November 11th, 2007 at 2:59 pm
Registrant Search potentially supplies information that the registrars themselves don’t even make available (indeed they aren’t obliged to do so in their registrar contracts): HISTORIC whois data, on a massive scale.
If somebody’s smart enough to pick some of the domains I own and Whois them – and I chose not to use Whois Privacy – then of course they’ll get to find out who’s behind those domains. But that doesn’t give them any data about domains which I USED to own but don’t any more – that information can’t be provided by the current registrar nor by any other party but yourself.
Similarly, if I moved over to Whois Privacy a couple of years back, nobody can find my name and address from current records – yet digging using your service they may well be able to derive them.
The worst sin of all is that there’s no blanket opt-out available. Services that archive information, from Archive.org
to Alexa or Google, all have mechanisms whereby that archived information can be eradicated by the people it refers to. As a custodian of archived Whois information, you should at the very very least be offering a similar simple opt-out service (including on a NAME basis i.e. I can specify my name and get all domains that reference me as a registrant deleted from your current and historic databases – yes, DELETED not just put on some exclusion lists).
Basically, since registrars themselves don’t archive historic Whois data and neither does anyone but you (in easily available, public facing format) domain owners haven’t known there’s anything they needed to “protect” themselves from, on the historic side – until now. You’ve created a brand new specter for them.
Do the right thing: take the service down and ERADICATE the data (if you don’t then what happens next month or next year when the temptation to put something similar together is too strong?)
November 11th, 2007 at 3:00 pm
As much as I enjoy finding out what great domains other people own I still think it should be taken down.
It could “potentially” be dangerous for those (lucky/early) indivduals and their families that own millions of dollars worth of names… People rob banks for far less !!
I can see why people would be very concerned.
Then there’s also the “potential” problem of it being used by lawyers aiming to proove bad intent or those that attempt to reverse hijack a name !
Great Tool but I can’t imagine that it would not be abused !
My vote is Take it Down
JMO
November 11th, 2007 at 3:01 pm
I see Sahar and begone’s points and no arguements there. Again Whois Privacy fixes that for the most part.
Yet, I thought of another good use. A couple sites I own are high profile in the niche I’m involved in. Say ten years down the road some of my early sites are still registered in my name and I’ve forgot that fact but people I don’t want to see that info relate those early sites to me.
I could use registrant search to find those.
November 11th, 2007 at 3:02 pm
I also agree with the above comments, in some ways this seems like an invasion of our privacy?
next thing you`ll know il be hiding behind post boxes making sure im not being stalked for my domains..
November 11th, 2007 at 3:03 pm
Whois privacy costa money. If you have a lot of domains it adds up.
Also, I have not used the tool but it appears to offer archived “old” whois info. Whois privacy won’t help with that.
I just ran a search on an email address that I used to use but currently have no domains under and a bunch of stuff showed up. I assume those are old whois records. They would have to be. so hence the whois privacy argument is worthless.
I personally felt duped when Jay came out with “Domain History.” I used to use whois-source back when it was all free and If I had kown all my whois searches were being recorded to later be used against me I wouldn’t have used it.
Mind you, I find the Domian History useful but it shouldn’t be abused. The registrant search is an abuse of this tool.
November 11th, 2007 at 3:12 pm
spambait85738
Whois privacy doesn’t fix the problem. I just searched on my home address which I have not used in the whois in 5 years and got almost 1000 records.
November 11th, 2007 at 3:13 pm
I don’t care, many times the info is not accurate anyway.
is up to you.
thx
November 11th, 2007 at 3:22 pm
clearly you’re violating WHOIS policy by caching and farming all results for profit. It’s because of this very tool that I’ll be canceling my whois subscription and stop doing business w/DomainTools..
Clearly take it down..
November 11th, 2007 at 3:29 pm
Yes, Begone (and others), Thanks for reminding me of the historical data that isn’t affected by later Whois Privacy purchases. I just glossed right over that and didn’t give it a thought.
And you are right about Whois Privacy being expensive. That’s why I don’t use it yet and dread the day I’ll need it.
Maybe Jay might consider offering a real good bulk Whois Privacy service that’s extremely reasonable. But I doubt anyone would purchase that service from a service that also makes the unpaid, unprotected data public. Kinda unethical or somrthing there. And I don’t see Jay as unethical.
The data collected is Jay’s property and I don’t see where he should feel he needs to discontinue his internal use but a easy opt-out should be immediately installed and He should consider taking it off line publically after everyone weighs in on it.
Another suggestion: It might be possible to add a text record to every whois record to force opt-out that record and any associated dns records. Then registrars could offer that for free or the same txt record could be added to the DNS records to recursively opt-out all records from Registrant Search.
November 11th, 2007 at 3:36 pm
I agree with the above comments that RegistrantSearch should be discontinued. I have spent some years researching and registering generic keyword domains for the industry that my company operates in. Not all domains are in current use, some are for planned future developments.
I do not employ domain privacy due to concerns about domain hijacking (where I understand lack of real registrant info can be an issue in these cases). With RegistrantSearch, any business competitor can pay to have a report of all domains my company owns. It wouldn’t take a genius to look at that list and figure out my company’s future direction or plans.
If my competitor wanted to sit down and spend (a lot of) time trying to second-guess where I might be going and checking domains and Whois info, then good luck to them. To have this information handed over to them withins minutes for a fee, really upsets me. There is no doubt that ReistrantSearch would be widely used for industrial espionage if it is allowed to continue.
November 11th, 2007 at 3:42 pm
Give me the option to get the list of YOUR names, with non hidden, or take it down. That simple.
November 11th, 2007 at 3:46 pm
So where is the explanation about why this tool was introduced? For whom? With what consultation with official bodies? With what safeguards in place? With what mechanisms for the correction of inaccurate data? With what provisions for protecting the vulnerable?
Some people who aren’t domainers have to register multiple domains on behalf of very different clients. This tool can put them in a very awkward position.
Also, peoples names or addresses may have been falsely used. You should know that credit blacklisting is sometimes done on the basis of address alone, so I hate to imagine the implications of referencing large numbers of domains to physical addresses.
If a given domain is subject to political or financial pressure, this makes it possible for those applying the pressure to seek soft spots on other domains. I suspect some will cancel domains or transfer them.
Until there is a very clear case FOR this tool and a clear legal and supervisory framework for it, it should be withdrawn, probably forever.
November 11th, 2007 at 3:54 pm
If you do take it down, it’d be cool if you left the part about how many domains the person has in the Whois. It’s quite an interesting number sometimes…
November 11th, 2007 at 3:59 pm
I say keep the tool up. A few considerations,
-It is public not private information.
-The idea isn’t new- dialog has offered it for a while this is simply that first time it has been done well.
-As far as it aiding domain theft goes, it probably exposes names held by thieves as much as it makes spotting names to steal easier.
-If domaintools scrap I would think someone else is going to offer the same thing anyway within the next few years.
The main reason I think domainers do not like it is because people simply do not want their names being known in terms of it being used in UDRP’s hearings. This is clearly a tool for “the other side”. Protecting domainers doesn’t justify a tool like this not existing in view.
The one thing I would like to see changed though is for this tool to simply be offered free to silver members.
November 11th, 2007 at 4:08 pm
1/ Domain names are now very valuable assets and you are exposing owners of premium domain names and their families.
Any scammer, thief, bad guy… can target a search on his neighborhood to find a place to attack, ransom or even kill in order to make sure the owner won’t claim his domain(s) back as soon as the threat for him or his family has gone.
That’s what a lot of rapists do : kill victims to make sure they can’t testify.
Killing is the ultimate solution as it’s so easy for someone to prove he was the “Real owner” and then get the domain(s) back.
With Registrant Search, this is no longer a safe world for our kids and family.
Considering domains as very valuable assets, no one should be able to know exacly what someone owns, especially when owners are INDIVIDUALS, not companies.
No one has access to the nature and number of stocks an individual owns, whether he owns, gold, silver, platinium, a bank account in Switzerland, the Caymans or anywhere else and the exact amount on bank accounts.
This is PRIVATE DATA that needs to remain private, not public.
This is no different for the domain space.
For the safety of those who have invested everything in the domain space when it was not hot, i’m asking you to take down registrant search.
These people, investors, have to be now rewarded for the financial risks they took several years ago.
We need to be rewarded, not exposed.
2/ Don’t really know how you get this data.
Is it directly from registries or from registrars ?
If that’s from registrars, do you have written consent from every single registrar (there are several hundreds) ?
If you don’t, your tool is in complete violation of every registrars’ Terms Of Service (TOS) that states : “The compilation, repackaging, dissemination or other use of this Whois Data is expressly prohibited without our prior written consent”.
3/ Do you know privacy rights are much stronger in some places outside the US, i’m especially thinking about Europe ?
If this threat to privacy rights is allowed in the USA then why don’t you only show US registrants ?
Each country has its own legislation and your tool is illegal in lots of countries.
4/ A domain name can say a lot about the sexual, racial or political leanings of the person registering it, so Registrant Search is the opened door to every kind of discrimination and man hunts.
Two examples :
1/ Any employer can screen candidates applying for a job to see if they ever registered a domain name.
Let’s imagine someone is gay and registered the domain http://www.iamgay.com
If the employer is anti-gay then Registrant Search can be the cause of a sexual job discrimination.
2/ Worse : Registrant Search can be used by authorities in non-democratic countries to search for activists and put them in jail.
Correct me if i’m wrong Jay : combined to “Whois History”, even if a person no longer owns activist domains, there’s a cached Whois info that will retrieve them.
Let’s say a college boy registered a http://www.thiscompanysucks.com or a http://www.governorXsucks.com domain name.
Even 10 years later, long after he no longer owns these domains and may have changed his opinion regarding this company or governor, this guy will be forever labeled as an activist as there is no time limit when this data is used.
And buying Whois privacy service won’t help.
It’s just lost money.
5/ What if someone impersonates us, registering dozens of hate or TM domain names using our name and address ?
What are the safeguards ?
How will we prove we never registered these domains ???
Registrant search is one of the WORST EVER threat for (digital) privacy rights and should be taken down immediately.
When you launched the service, i read people saying the tool was great as it would help them retrieve the complete list of domains they own.
With all the existing tools, i mean databases, softwares…, how can someone forget about the domains they own ?
Unless they are amateurs, domainers exactly know the domains they own, when they are set to expire and even if they didn’t, registrars are required by ICANN to send an email once a year to verify contact info (nice way to get the whole list once a year).
Most registrars also offer auto-renew services.
Consolidating your portfolio at a single registrar is definitely the best way to ensure you won’t lose or forget a single domain name.
Jay, for the safety of everyone, take Registrant Search down.
November 11th, 2007 at 4:25 pm
Yes, we need to be told the source of this data.
Another concept this collides with is that data should have a limited life or it poses the risks happydomainer has just described – an angry or drunk registration can follow a person around forever.
November 11th, 2007 at 4:41 pm
Hello Jay,
First of all, I will say that you are one of the smartest person in the domain industry. Your site and its tools speak volumes about your innovativeness and originality. Everyone was greatly impressed by the auction format that you introduced few months ago. So in essence you do set the standard sometimes for others to follow.
I use your site many times and its very handy for looking many things.
So thank you very much for providing great tools to us all domainers.
Regarding the registrant search tool:
Is it a great tool? Yes it is.
Can it be used for legitimate purposes by others? Yes it can be.
Then why do we fear it?:
Well, not everyone is going to use this tool for good purposes.
Someone (lets say a crook) can do a registrant search and know exactly how many domains a person owns, where he lives, etc etc. That kind of information can then be used to threaten the registrant in various ways which I won’t go in to details here as I don’t want to provide additional ideas to anyone.
I have gotten calls from people accusing me why I have a domain if I am not using it (like they think it should be used), not only that people have gotten upset when they find out I own few extensions of the same domain. And so on…………Now if someone finds out that a domainer has 100 domains and then their temperature really boils up. They think domainer is doing something very wrong. Not many people understand that the domainer has spent years of long ours thinking and coming up with ideas for domains and spent thousands of dollars on acquiring and renewing those domains. No one knows that domainers family has suffered for years while he was always tied to the computer looking to register his/her ideas. Some people think its their birth right to have it now for registration fee, what the domainer has for many years.
I think you have every right to offer any tool that you want, but this tool does makes us domainers a little uneasy. In my view, apart from its legitimate purposes, the registrant search tool also enables crooks to do crookedness:)
This tool has been discussed on forums in great depth when it came out, and you can see for yourself that majority felt that you should not offer it, or may be find a way to not make it available for every Joe (appologize if someone’s name is Joe here) on the street.
Again, thanks for all the tools you provide.
I hope I have not unintentionally said something incorrect above. Please correct me if you find something off the mark as English is my second language btw
Looking forward to other responses and your final decision.
Regards.
November 11th, 2007 at 4:49 pm
I say take it down. The reasons why should be pretty clear to any domainer without having to explain them.
If you do decide to keep it up despite all the negative feedback, please provide an opt out option, free.
November 11th, 2007 at 4:59 pm
This is how I feel.
It’s a tool, that, in the right hands…can be used for good.
In the wrong hands…it can be used for bad.
Someone is going to make a new one, if you take it down.
Someone is going to make an alternative, if you keep it up.
Keep it up. If someone has to use one, it mine as well be yours. Domaintools is a trusted source.
November 11th, 2007 at 5:03 pm
Nobody can make the same tool. Jay has archived whois that nobody has access to anymore.
I just did a search on Sahar sarid and found 15 records crica 2000. If I bought those I would get his old email and home address. Using that info I could do more searches and find out almost all his good domains.
Frank Schilling turned up 205 records.
Also note that guys like Frank and Sahar used to register Trade mark domains buy accident on the drop. That info could be used against them in UDRP’s and court.
November 11th, 2007 at 5:04 pm
Leave it up. Those with malicious intent can get this information through other means anyway. It is publicly available information and you are merely providing an interface to this data.
If domain registrant’s don’t like it, they have no one to blame but themselves. Once you put information in the WHOIS, or anywhere on the Internet for that matter, it is there permanently.
The people complaining seem to have grown comfortable with their “security through obscurity” that they were living with. Now they complain that someone aggregates and provides an interface to PUBLIC data.
November 11th, 2007 at 5:07 pm
@begone123 “Jay has archived whois that nobody has access to anymore.”
You have proof of this? Again more security through obscurity. Be advised there are other MANY other parties with historically archived WHOIS data. To think Jay is the only one is absurd. He is the only one providing an interface to this data that anyone can access, but certainly not the only one who has this data.
November 11th, 2007 at 5:22 pm
jnigro024,
Jay’s data comes from whois lookups on his site. Back in the day there were not too many whois lookups and Whois-source got a fair amount of lookups. Plus they offered things like domain monitoring free. In fact I used to use it.
No body starting today would have access to this historical whois data. I’m not saying it doesn’t exist out there, of course it does. but no one except the government could compile it.
Even jay’s data is incomplete. I know for a fact that Frank Schilling had thousands of domains with under real info but Jay’s tool only shows up 205. However, If I wanted to drill down I could find more I am sure.
I stand by what I said. The dangerous part of this tool, the archived data cannot be recreated.
Also note that back in the day. Things were more innocent. When I started registering domains I put my real name and address in the whois. Man was that a mistake. Death threats, stalkers, lawsuits, I have paid a heavy price.
Fast fwd 8 years and you have Russian and Iranian and Chinese Computer gangs who are going to love this tool. I am no sage but one thing I have learned is that I can’t think like an evil man or a criminal. Those people are going to come up with ways to use this tool that we can’t even think of.
November 11th, 2007 at 5:28 pm
The only people who should fear a registrant search are those with trademark skeletons in the closet. And unfortunately, even some of us who are “prominent” in the industry play games with shell companies where some store troublesome domains. Don’t play with fire and you won’t have to worry about someone exposing you. And if you’re already archived, then this is the price you pay for playing with fire.
This whole argument that someone is going to look up one of my domains, then see all the domains I own, then stalk or kill me because I deal in domains or own many domains…is uhh rather wacky. Should only the world care that much about you.
If Jay doesn’t do this, someone else will because there entrepreneurs will deliver what the market demands. However, regardless of who provides this service, the end result will be boosting demand for whois privacy, which I’m sure the registrars like.
Josh
November 11th, 2007 at 5:29 pm
happydomainers Asks: When you launched the service, i read people saying the tool was great as it would help them retrieve the complete list of domains they own.
With all the existing tools, i mean databases, softwares…, how can someone forget about the domains they own ?
Hee Hee. “Hey, this is cool, who owns this site? Wow, it’s me!!!”
November 11th, 2007 at 5:30 pm
Wise man points out:
, and Thompson and Thompson all have similar services that they have made it available and also promoted to IP attorneys for years. I attended an INTA show and everyone already has this tool. I think most domainers have a problem with the service because they can actually see it now. Putting the cap back on the bottle doesn’t stop the genie once it is out. My knew favorite quote is, “The Truth wants to be free”.”"
“”Mark Monitor, Name.com
The difference between those others and Jay’s is Jay makes it accessible and popularizes it..I’ve never gotten any hate mail.. not in years. Haven’t tried the service.. just been so busy ..but I could see the privacy concerns as word of its existence starts to spread virally and to neer’do’wells
November 11th, 2007 at 5:46 pm
There should be an opt-out option. The information should continue to be logged privately for law enforcement purposes. I own over 50 domains (Domaintools says only 33, however) and I have no problem with this tool. All of my domains are for real websites and none of them are parked/squatted. Many of the domains I only registered to protect from parkers/squatters. I would love nothing more than to be contacted (via the details in whois) by someone who would like to put one of my domains to a good use.
Just start a real business on the Internet and you won’t have to worry about this silliness. I don’t think any Amazon rain forest enthusiasts complain about Amazon.com
Inc.’s use of their namesake’s domain.
November 11th, 2007 at 5:56 pm
The legal issue here for Jay, something he may have already been threatened with is:
He’s collecting information from registrars who prohibit the collection, selling, compiling, etc of their information:
For example, enom says:
Access to eNom’s Whois information is for informational purposes only. eNom makes this information available “as is,” and does not guarantee its accuracy. The compilation, repackaging, dissemination or other use of eNom’s Whois information in its entirety, or a substantial portion thereof, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of eNom By accessing and using our Whois information, you agree to these terms.
Someone like Moniker might come along and say, ok stop selling our information or we’re going to sue you.
November 11th, 2007 at 6:28 pm
Jay,
Please, leave it up. There are so many domainers doing things that they should not, and they will lead the charge to take it down. Domain Industry reputation? The only reputation this industry has is a bad one. We have people that pass themselves off as having integrity, and doing unethical and maybe illegal things behind closed doors. Then there jokers create awards, and they give them to others like themselves, or to those that they hope will legitimize them. This whole industry continuously turns its eyes away from what ultimately hurts the domain industry. This industry smells like a rats nest and is in the gutter. Your quote, as quoted by the Conceptualist:
“Michael Arrington openly called domainers thugs and racketeers about 5 months on his blog. Outsiders in general don’t know what is going on when they look into our industry. Even someone like Mr. Arrington who used to be employed as a CEO inside our industry. We need to change the way outsiders perceive everything about domains and promote values that increase the integrity of the entire system for everyone.”
You could not be more right. Please leave the tool up, and it will help shine the light on those that preach one thing and do another in the dark. This tool will make the rats scurry. SHINE THAT LIGHT!
November 11th, 2007 at 6:30 pm
Why don’t you try to have it both ways? Take it down as a public tool but charge something obscenely outrageous for the trademark attorneys who want the data.
— Bret
November 11th, 2007 at 6:31 pm
Once someone uses this tool for any of the malicious reasons already outlined, the victim is gonna sue the sh_t out you for being the source of the data that was used.
November 11th, 2007 at 6:59 pm
I am following this discussion with great interest and the folks who are against this tool made many valid points, but I wanted to share a couple of observations that might put me on the unpopular side…
Let’s put them out there for discussion.
1) Every domaineer wants domains to be recognized as “real estate” with all the rights and privileges that entails.
Well, any piece of real estate and its owner’s information and the size of their mortgage, valuation for tax purposes, and the ownership and title history is publicly accessible information. If this information was “hidden” for privacy reasons, you could kiss goodbye to the modern mortgage finance industry as we know it as well as intelligent planning for development and building.
I am not sure if real estate IS the right analogy but if it is, then “real” real estate suggest that there should be more information available, not less.
2) Jay is not causing the problems with poor security at registrars. Someone trying to steal a valuable domain can attack and try to crack an email anyway. This is an argument for better registrar security, not worse WhoIs information.
3) Even besides WhoIs Privacy, there are plenty of ways to protect personal privacy. For a few hundred dollars up front and less than 100 dollars a year anyone can register an LLC to hold their domains and post office box as a mailing address. So I am struggling to understand who these people are who have $XXX,XXX to $X,XXX,XXX in domains but are apparently using their personal names and home addresses in the whois records. Really???
Let me tell you, if that is what you are doing there are far more important reasons than Jay’s tool(like personal liability protection) for you to go put an LLC in place immediately.
Likewise, if you are that concerned about your questionable TM domains, put them in a different company. I am pretty sure that would take care of the UDRP issue.
4) I think it might be fair to give people the opportunity to opt out of being in this database for names they no longer own or are no longer the registrant for. Let’s say someone used a home address in the past that they are no longer using, perhaps they should be allowed to hide it.
Though again I am not sure how this is different than personal information that is available for real estate, but I could be convinced of this point.
Anyway, that is my 2 cents
November 11th, 2007 at 7:06 pm
What a shit head.
What is your motivation for such antics.
This site is history to me.
November 11th, 2007 at 7:38 pm
Keep the tool.
If you’re all so frightened of killers, scammers, and crooks, get a P.O. box ($120.00 a year), use an non-identifying email address, and company name.
If Jay doesn’t keep the tool, someone unsavory will develop it and will quite likely will use it against domainers.
This is NOT really private information anyway; if someone wants it bad enough, he/she will get it, probably through the courts. I know someone whose Whois Privacy info was rather unceremoniously unmasked just because someone was “pi$$ed off” and simply asked the registrar, who rolled over and gave it out willy nilly.
This tool represents one bell that can NEVER be unrung.
Get over it, prepare your info accordingly, and move on.
Ms Domainer
November 11th, 2007 at 8:16 pm
Jay, I’ve read some of the comments (but unfortunately I don’t have time to read them all).
My vote goes to keeping the tool.
Not sure if this will help or hurt the case, but I’m the owner of http://www.CertGuard.com, I research (on a daily basis) the heathen that plague the IT Industry with their illegal braindumps and hired-gunmen (proxy test taking) services. The information provided by the registrant search is a great help to me and the millions of Certified IT Professionals that I’m fighting for.
November 11th, 2007 at 8:29 pm
NO NO NO NO NO NO!
Western society has thrived because of open information. Keeping domain registrations obscured is no different than allowing property ownership to be hidden (in the United States it is not). If someone is concerned about their privacy, the Post Office rents boxes for less than $40/ year. That is not expensive. Private ($9/ year) registrations are not necessary for domainers . . . they can always get a PO Box.
Democratic societies exist and thrive with open information. If people want to hide in the shadows, they probably have something to hide.
The Registrant Search is an amazing, and innovative tool that can help clean up this industry. PLEASE KEEP IT AVAILABLE.
November 11th, 2007 at 8:36 pm
People who say “keep the tool” generally don’t seem to be making a distinction between CURRENT and HISTORIC Whois information.
CURRENT Whois information can be obtained in all sorts of ways, and when privacy issues rear their ugly head the use of Whois Privacy or a PO Box will take care of the issue as far as the CURRENT Whois.
The huge can of worms is the HISTORICAL whois, which is certainly NOT widely available (and not accessible to the “general public” at all except via Registrant Search) That is where the real problems lie. If the tool has to stay up at all – and as I’ve already stated, my reasoned preference is to have it removed – at least remove the HISTORICAL data so that a registrant’s past history can’t come back to haunt them.
An example (one of many issues): 10 years ago they had some TM names which they dropped several years back having thought better of that side of things, but with this tool that might still be used in a “pattern of abuse” lawsuit challenge against a generic currently in their possession.
UPDATE BY JAY: Actually, All whois on my site is historical. Once you view it as output it is immediately historical. There is no such thing as current whois. That act of looking at it is historical, perhaps 3 seconds historical. Who should govern was it historical enough? 3 seconds historical, 10 seconds historical, 10 days historical, and now we start the slipper slope.
November 11th, 2007 at 9:22 pm
@MsDomainer
>If you’re all so frightened of killers, scammers, and crooks, get a P.O. box ($120.00 a year), use an non-identifying email address, and company name.
I think you’re missing the point here. The tool shows all *historical data*. Changing your registration details now will not make a difference.
Some of us have been around on the net for many years, well before WHOIS provacy was even a concern or available for purchase.
November 11th, 2007 at 9:43 pm
Most of these comments are completely off base. The question is not about the “Historical Data” tool, which actually is rather useful and benign.
The issue is with the “Registrant Search” feature that encompasses all of the current and historical data and ties them to a single registrant/entity/email/etc…
November 11th, 2007 at 10:03 pm
——————————-
The issue is with the “Registrant Search” feature that encompasses all of the current and historical data and ties them to a single registrant/entity/email/etc…
——————————-
Correct, that is the issue. There are a lot of skeletons in a lot of closets and THAT is what is scaring people.
November 11th, 2007 at 10:40 pm
The problem is that this tool is being shoved up all of our collective backsides without permission.
In plain English, it is legalized rape.
That really is NOT so legal…
NONE of Jay’s archival tool is technically legal, for he violated the Registrars first by harvesting the data… read the headers on any whois output… tsk tsk…
Jay’s new “REgistrant SEarch” tool opens up any domainer to a blatant ass raping by attorneys, whom this tool is obviously intended for. Jay, at least have the balls to tell us who is likely to use the tool… don’t bs yourself (’cause you aint foolin us) by saying “oh yeah… big companies need this to keep track of thier own names, yadda yadda, widdy widdy…” That dog won’t hunt and you damned well know it. This tool is for any overly zealous attorney to use when trying to establish a “pattern of behavior” regarding TM names, or even worse… some sort of moral discoloring… think about it.
I used to catch names for people. I ran a drop service. Hell, I was the DropCatcher! Ok, fine you say…. but wait… while I was collecting names and then waiting for payment, later to distribute said names, they were in one of MY accounts… So we fast forward a few years later… Some intrepid attorney decides he’s going to “Tool” me… and what does he find? Well, a lot of you here payed me small fortunes for some of the most disgusting, foul, degrading, and shamelessy shocking adult domains you could imagine! And some of you paid me to catch TM domains, or typos of TM domains, or just plain objectionable domains that don’t fit into the above categories…
So What, you say?
Ok, remember Mr. “Out to Make a Name for Himself” Attorney? Well, he decides he is going to “Tool” me because he wants something I have NOW… and guess what? If you did deep enough, he’ll find every one of the above mentioned domains… Does he still have to really “prove” his current case on merrits, or am I now seen as a shameless miscreant pervert typosquatting cybersquatter who has it coming to him anyway?
My God! It is bad enough that Jay has supplied them with a deep probing tool… I’ve just realized my friends are going to hold me down while it is used on me!
ok, ok… the above is not going to happen because I was a little smarter than that… even back then. But if one did know what to search for in those whois records… ohhh boy, how shocking!
Bottom line is this… The “Historical DAta” on particular names is very useful and actually can and has been used to prove true ownership of stolen names. The proliferation of “Private Whois” entries on names today is basically a loophole that is being abused anyway. Transparency on this was is still being debated on many different levels… Google “WhoIs Transparency” and have a gander at some of the positions… Bottom line, having the archived info on any “known” domain is a good thing.
But just being able to go “fishing” for all domains held at any time, either historical or current, by a single entity…. no valid purpose other than to directly violate that individual in some fashion.
November 11th, 2007 at 10:41 pm
I really do know how to spell better than that, sorry.
November 11th, 2007 at 10:43 pm
I know that in the end you’ll have to either take it down completely or change it such that it alleviates the problems highlighted by many before me. To me the historical whois is the most troublesome and potentially bringing littigations to your company. All you need to do is to weigh the benefits (including financial gains) of such service continuing to be provided vs. the danger of any future tarnishing of your company’s reputation (and the financial costs)through lawsuites.
Also, if the domainers are not your best customers and can afford to lose many of them, then keep the Registrant Search up: it only needs one bad thing to happen coming out from the info provided through Registrant Search tool and the hell can breake loose. If it’s worth the risk, then leave the service, if not…
November 11th, 2007 at 10:48 pm
a2, this isn’t about the “Historical Whois”, silly….
November 11th, 2007 at 11:05 pm
Some of you are far too trusting of Whois Privacy; registrars are under no obligation to protect your information. Read your terms of service. If they get an inkling that you might be doing something hinky, they’ll trumpet your information to anyone who even threatens to sue.
November 11th, 2007 at 11:34 pm
A whole lot of squirming going on above, and alot of weak nervous threats. This could be the most effective tool for the start of house cleaning in the domain business. Please keep it up.
November 12th, 2007 at 12:08 am
This tool will only drive everybody into Whois Privacy ==> more money for registrars. Shut the tool down. It will result in less transparency if everybody hides.
If you don’t want to shut it down, at least there should be a possibility to opt out (without having to pay you).
November 12th, 2007 at 12:44 am
Most of the people posting above against your Registrant Search tool would also vouch against your Domain History tool if they were given the opportunity to argument that. In fact it is pretty clear from reading them that they dislike Domain History just as much. Don’t be mislead by this very vocal minority of people that have a vested interest in you not providing these services either because they already have access to such information through other means and thus prefer to keep their edge over the commoners or because they think that they have reached a certain landmark in their domain career a don’t want others to get insight on their strategy or positioning for competitive reasons.
Please keep the Registrant Search tool running. This is a great service you are offering the domain community and a natural extension to the other excellent tools you provide.
November 12th, 2007 at 1:01 am
Jay:
With this tool you’re putting peoples lives at risk!
Let me explain further…
Hardcore criminals have the opportunity now to do research on premium domain holders and find out what more valuable domains they have in their portfolio.
If the amount of premium domains they can trace back to the owner and the associated value in their eyes is worth it – the decision to do an home invasion or kidnapping to force the domain owner to transfer the domains to a strawmans’s account and sell the domains or profit of them through other means is easily made.
You can argument how silly this might sound, but if you think about it for a second it’s not that silly at all.
People do the craziest things for money nowadays.
And it can be a very lucrative business now you can pin point your target victims with your service.
You may not be familiar with a case where criminals have used your tool?
But do you really want to wait for something like this to happen?
And if it happens…can you live with the guilt?
Because i sure hope you’re human enough to feel guilty by then and shut the service down…that is if you’re not convinced already and don’t want to live with the guilt of people getting hurt…through your service.
With great powers…comes great responsibility…
What are you going to do Jay?…tik…tak….tik…tak….
Time to decide!
November 12th, 2007 at 1:13 am
Jay
I say KEEP the registrant search facility, but perhaps tighten up security . I do NOT believe the many excuses that some of the other posters are putting up against the tool, what I think is that what they really dont like is the “little people” having an advantage over them (the holders of large numbers of domains). As long as you keep the details of who is obtaining the search results then that is as secure as it should be. If someone wanted to track any specific person without the tool they could easily do so.
I say ,do not cow tow to the wishes and bleatings of some of the larger domain holders , KEEP the registrant search facility, please.
November 12th, 2007 at 1:19 am
Jay
Just thinking further. If what some of the people above are really worried about is someone knowing their addresses (and I dont think it really is I think that is their excuse for objecting) then (a) that is their fault for not using a proxy or registering through an offshore company (b) you could remove addresses from the results (c) I think it very far fetched to say that someone is going to come around and force them to transfer their domains and then sell them.
November 12th, 2007 at 1:23 am
Jay,
I thing it shoud be removed. Whilst hte tool is useful;, I am not sure that people really need to know the full name and address of every domain holder.
Certainly it places individuals at risk from abuse, theft etc particularly where the full address is listed. It also could offer those undertaking identity theft further evidence that they are who they are not…!
Please remove this facility – it feeds into the ‘big brother’ mentality that we seem to face in this day and age and in no way ‘helps’.
If people want to get in touch then they have other means other than full name and full address posted through this facility.
With regards,
Gordon…
November 12th, 2007 at 1:25 am
This is completely false. I, for one, absolutely love the LINEAR Domain History tool. It is the all encompassing /past/present REGISTRANT SEARCH tool that is at issue. Make real comments on point if you really can… if not, we understand…
dw52714 Says:
November 12th, 2007 at 12:44 am
“Most of the people posting above against your Registrant Search tool would also vouch against your Domain History tool if they were given the opportunity to argument that. In fact it is pretty clear from reading them that they dislike Domain History just as much…”
Absolute rubbish
November 12th, 2007 at 1:28 am
Good Lord, People…
REGISTRANT SEARCH >>> THE TOPIC.
HISTORICAL WHOIS >>> NOT THE TOPIC.
GET IT???
November 12th, 2007 at 1:46 am
I think you should take this tool down immediately. It is a tremendous abuse of Whois information.
November 12th, 2007 at 2:02 am
A total shut down has low sense as another company will create a similar service tomorrow.
Don’t shut down the tool but do the following improvement:
LIMIT the search to CURRENT registrants and don’t search in WHOIS history!!! This way the ones that want to protect their privacy can use domain privacy services.
November 12th, 2007 at 2:09 am
It is funny how people are bringing up the issue about the “full name and address of domain holders” as if that has anything to do with your Registrant Search service. Jay is not publishing any more information than what is shown in the publically available Whois records. Every domain holder knows that the info they give when registering a name will be publicly available in Whois. “Professional” domain holders obviously know that and if they are worried about their privacy or personal safety (sic), they can register names through a corporate entity or use a Whois privacy service. That is the info that will show up in Whois and that same info will be picked up by DomainTools. So as I mentioned in my previous comment, what upsets people most is the Domain History feature because they may have used their personal address in the past or owned iffy domains (under their real name?). But then again, at the time of those regs, they were fully aware of the information being public, that it was recorded, and as “professionals” they were also aware that a number of parties were archiving the Whois database.
November 12th, 2007 at 2:16 am
cartoonz Says:
November 12th, 2007 at 1:28 am
Good Lord, People…
REGISTRANT SEARCH >>> THE TOPIC.
HISTORICAL WHOIS >>> NOT THE TOPIC.
————–
I’m sorry but there is a link between the two. For those posting about privacy concerns, whether of their personal information or the scope of their portfolio, they could easily switch all their names to Whois privacy and, without access to historical Whois that would yield registrant searches useless.
November 12th, 2007 at 2:23 am
Since the first domain I registered, almost 8 years ago, I never used anything besides a PO Box address, a phone I can change anytime, and my name, that is equal to hundreds of other people. Not because of any registrant search, but because anyone could check the whois of a single domain of mine.
And I don’t talk just about criminals, but from fans or crazy people in general. Whois info is accessible by everyone, so we must be careful with what we put there…
Nuno Oliveira
CatalogDomains.com
November 12th, 2007 at 4:17 am
KEEP THE SERVICE
As it has been said, in real life, many information are made public.
We use this service to trace fraudster and it’s very convenient.
I’m sure one don’t have to fear registrant search if business model is clean.
Furthermore, if you want to take care of your identity, you can already protect your regsitrant information through anonymization services.
In order to protect public information from being used by spammer, We only ask you to let this service as a pay-per-use service.
November 12th, 2007 at 4:20 am
If you are buying and selling domain names then you register them to your business address.
If you are running a business on the net then you register the name and address of the business (otherwise you are in breach of one the basic principles of the free trade system). In Europe you must give the name and geographical address of the business on the website.
If a fraudster has one site he may have many others so keep the tool
November 12th, 2007 at 5:06 am
The historical data offered by this tool is improperly cached from Whois, leaving domaintools open to litigation from victims.
Some of the unsympathetic comments on here about privacy clearly come from people with no experience of what can arise from rape, child abuse and criminal activity.
Non current (ie historical) Whois records were never meant to be available and can be used to trace family members and business associates, leading to the harassment, abuse and even murder of the victims, even after they have relocated.
We have been invited to post arguments, not just votes, so I invite those in favour of making this improper information available to explain why it is ok to sell improperly acquired data which puts others at risk.
Publicly available income data in Sweden had to be restricted due to similar concerns, and as I recall they have to publish the name of the party doing the search and it may not contain more than 10 items.
November 12th, 2007 at 5:30 am
People might forget that cybersquatting was not illegal prior to the Lanham Act of 1999. Prior to that time I was registering anything and everything that got traffic. The wasn’t grandfathered and I have a right to keep all those domains. At that time the word cybersquatting didn’t even exist.
Lately I have been gitting hit with UDRP’s for obviously generic domains and this tool will insure that I lose everyone of those UDRP’s.
Then there is the matter of lawsuits
I assume that for many people commenting being sued is just theoretical. For me it is not. I have had several large judgements against me brought about by several large companies willing to spend endless amounts of money on attorneys. I am currently being sued and this tool was used to track down a large portion of domains that I own. Screen shots of Jays tool were entered into evidence.
The poeple commenting saying keep the tool will never ever buy a report so they are just kidding themselves (have you seen the prices?). This report is for lawyers and ciminals. It is not a useful tool for domainers.
If you only own 100-200 domains maybe you don’t have any TM issues, but if you have a large portfolio you porbably do. And don’t forget the lawyers follow the money. IT lawyers are growing in number and they are coming after you next.
Whois privacy is useless. A lawyer will have your real name in address within a few days. PO Box is also useless, the USPS has to give a lawyer your name. Shell companies, LLC’s, none of that is going to help you when a real law firm comes after you. The only real answer is completely fake whois and even this has flaws. And before all you do-gooder chime in. There is no differnce between whois privacy and fake whois.
Also note that a lot of smart people don’t want to use whois privacy because it makes ownership hard to prove. Look at all the problems RegFlY customers who used whois privacy had. They had a hell of time trying to get there domains out of Regfly.
I also think Jay is going to have to take this tool down because he is violating the TOS of every registrar. They all say you can’t repackage their whois data. I’d say these registars have a obligation to protect their customers and may very well sue Jay.
November 12th, 2007 at 5:37 am
Jay,
Please keep and enhance the Registrant Search facility. If you give in on this issue then the next demand will be that all WhoIs History records be removed as well. There are government and private organizations that are also archiving WhoIs records but most of us will never have access to that information. Registrant Search empowers all Internet users equally.
The Internet was founded on the presumption of openness and transparency. Around the world today there are many governments and organizations who don’t like to the Internet and what total control over it. Should they feel threatened by the Internet? Yes, for the first time in human history we have the opportunity to create an organizational structure which is not hierarchal. If this bold experiment in human freedom is to succeed the Internet must be open and transparent. Let the governments and criminals find new rocks to hide under; I chose the sunlight.
Mike
November 12th, 2007 at 5:47 am
Keep the tool.
It seems that most of the commenters that are against this tool actually have a big problem with the justice systems of their countries and security of their registrars. Jay’s is not the party responsible for problems within those systems. This tool is not a burglary tool (by attorney or by criminal) to any greater extent than the whole Internet is a burglary tool.
One suggestion I would make…how about every time someone is the subject of a Registrant Search report;
1) They get a free copy of the report.
2) They get information about who purchased the report.
Keep the tool…increase the transparency.
November 12th, 2007 at 5:50 am
Jay, basically DomainTools is used mostly BY domainers, while the tool is used mostly AGAINST domainers.
You decide.
November 12th, 2007 at 5:58 am
I feel that listing a Registrant’s info. has always been wrong, to start with, but I guess that’s the way the system is structured so I am stuck with that.
And I also feel that a person should be able to make whatever (legal) software programs that they desire.
So, for ME, I guess it really boils down to this :
Just because you CAN do something, does that mean that you SHOULD do it ??
Someone COULD, in a LEGAL manner, of course, follow Jay W. around everywhere he goes and take pictures of him, documenting everything he publicly does and post them online, but that does NOT mean that it is the RIGHT thing to do or that one SHOULD do it !!
November 12th, 2007 at 6:15 am
Jay,
Put it to a vote!
Let all paying subscribers to DomainTools have one vote on this most important issue. If you are guest at DomainTools then put your money where your mouth is and join DomainTools as a paying member.
I would recommend the following.
1. Setup on online voting web page in the member’s area.
2. Schedule a voting period for a specific time interval.
3. Send out an Email announcement of the vote and the issues involved.
4. Publish the results of the vote.
If nothing else it may do wonders for your bottom line.
Mike
November 12th, 2007 at 6:15 am
I would definitely keep it up, because this is publicly available information. You’ve done nothing wrong by giving us a new — useful — way to search it, and if you don’t do it, someone else will. We’re going through the same arguments that people did when Google opened up the reverse phone number lookup. People were outraged that this information was available, but it always had been — just not in as useful a form. The underlying information was still public, and it was public because the owner wanted it to be.
The cost for making the information private is definitely a very significant concern, but there’s nothing you, Jay, can do about that. Maybe this will cause enough complaints, though, that the price of privacy will be driven way down.
As for the historical information, that may be a completely different beast altogether. I’m not sure.
November 12th, 2007 at 6:23 am
The question is not do we like or do we hate this tool, it is rather IS IT LEGAL OR NOT ?
1/ Unless Jay has 869 written consents (from 869 registrars), it seems obvious the tool is in complete violation of every registrars’ Terms Of Service (TOS) that states : “The compilation, repackaging, dissemination or other use of this Whois Data is expressly prohibited without our prior written consent”.
2/ People writing here in favor of RS are much too US centric.
For US citizens out there : you are 303 million in a 6.630 billion world (1/22).
US LAWS OR RULES ARE NOT WORLDWIDE LAWS.
Privacy is a much stronger concern in European countries.
In lots of these countries, data provided by Registrant Search is a privacy breach and it’s clearly ILLEGAL.
Still about the too US centric arguments, there are countries where PO boxes are only available to companies, NOT INDIVIDUALS.
LLCs are also a US concept and why incorporating now when you own a few valuable parked domains that you want to develop at a later time ?
And those saying domain owners wanting RS down should use Whois privacy services don’t understand exactly how the tool works.
It’s been said here SEVERAL times but it seems pro-RS definitely don’t want to hear : combined to “Whois History”, Whois Privacy services are worthless as RS will keep on retrieving every single domain a registrant owns, WHETHER WHOIS PRIVACY IS TURNED ON OR OFF !
Finally, saying other companies will make the same data available so we’d better keep Registrant Search up don’t make RS a more legitimate tool.
It’s illegal from the start and remains illegal whether or not others will do the same.
By the way, if Mark Monitor, Name.com
, and Thompson and Thompson retrieve data the same way (compilation, repackaging, dissemination or other use of this Whois Data is expressly prohibited without registrars’ prior written consent) and use it in courts or UDRP then that’s nothing but data retrieved illegally.
That’s a procedural error and THE CASE SHOULD BE DECLARED VOID.
We have far enough to deal with the UDRP roulette defending valuable generic domains.
RS is an additional threat for large porfolio owners to be painted as squatters.
TAKE IT DOWN.
The answer to the initial question is that RS is clearly ILLEGAL.
Those who want the tool up are the ones that don’t own any single valuable domain.
They are either law firms or latecomers trying to get into the business one way or another (and the other way is rather unethically).
It makes me think of paparrazzi spying on and harassing celebrities.
Should these people own 10 valuable domains, they would instantly change their mind, bolt like jackrabbits and would be ready to kill anyone to have the tool taken down !
Jay, you have a good company providing nice tools like “Psychic Whois” but “Registrant Search” is seriously tarnishing your reputation.
We are not ducks and don’t anymore want to be a moving target.
Make the wise choice : declare it’s forever closed season for man hunting.
November 12th, 2007 at 6:36 am
Is the internet itself not dependant on the free flow of information? If you want to find out who registered a property can you freely search the deeds office. If you want to file a trade mark you can do an online search at most trade mark office websites, the same goes for company registrations. So why should domain name registrant information be any different. Provide the information and the domain name market will adapt, it might also cause the domain name industry to clean up its image.
November 12th, 2007 at 6:40 am
You do not have the right to SELL personal or company information to third parties.
Take it down
November 12th, 2007 at 7:09 am
Dear happydomainers,
To be very honest, I don’t care what laws you have in Europe as I never intend to be governed by them. What you have in Europe in not privacy laws but government monopolies on information. You can’t walk down a street in London without your every movement and facial expression being recorded by the state. Some privacy!
We Yanks designed the ARPANet to survive WWIII and the Internet will survive European lawyers and bureaucrats. So bring them on!
Mike
November 12th, 2007 at 7:20 am
Dear michael91806
The internet is used WORLDWIDE, not only by Yanks.
You should start to care about everyone’s law, culture and so on in the world, or internet governance will very quickly been taken out of the US government hands : see the World Internet Forum Opening in Brazil http://www.canadianbusiness.com/markets/market_news/article.jsp?content=D8SQMA6G0
Do you want the internet controled by the United Nations ?
We don’t want it either so it’s time for Yanks to listen to voices outside the US… before it’s too late.
November 12th, 2007 at 7:24 am
I think this is one step in the right direction to show transparency. The “domain Investor” wants to be viewed by main street, wants them to be realized as real property, wants greater liquidity with their assets. This tool and others probably coming in the future are going to bring that.
The people against it:
Is it revealing of info that was “private”?
Yes
Who cares? If you owned any other valuable assets you would have to declare them and people would be able to find that information out.
The people against it:
It will increase the WIPO and TM lawyers exposure
I think most people who are worried are those that are own TM in their portfolio and i know that 85% of domainers own at least some.
The people against it:
But it could be sued against those in legitimate manner.
Response: Be realistic! Those vultures are going to attempt to take the name anyways and do whatever it takes to attempt to get it. We need clearer laws that protect all parties.
SUPPORT THE ICA….WHATEVER YOU THINK ABOUT IT….IT’S BETTER THAN NOTHING.
November 12th, 2007 at 7:57 am
Take Registrant Search down. It’s clearly in breach of WHOIS server Terms and Conditions. The only people it’s likely to help are lawyers looking to reverse-hijack domains by painting domainers as cybersquatters.
November 12th, 2007 at 8:11 am
Great tool! Don’t take it down.
Honest people should have nothing to be afraid of!
It is a good move towards the transparency of the market.
November 12th, 2007 at 8:36 am
The focus on assets, markets and money on here may be missing broader issues. Just saying all information should be free (this particular information is freely available on payment to Domaintools only) and that people should have nothing to hide is a bit simplistic.
Suppose someone had registered the domain Womensplace, owned it briefly, and donated it to a charity providing shelter to battered women. That individual did not use or profit from the domain and is no longer the registrant. Their details are, however, perpetually available to very dangerous individuals trying to find and punish the battered partners who have escaped them. So they will use all available resources to find the secret location of the shelter.
Now who wants to help them?
November 12th, 2007 at 9:04 am
I am sure this tool will be used by repressive governments like the one in China to track down disenters. Guess how many people are executed in China every year; tens of thousands. Relatives of people in the US whos disent are regulary imprisoned.
Activts around the world will be put at risk by this tool.
The argument that all info should be available is just dumb. All sorts of info is protected by law for example, medical, legal, criminal, tax, bank records etc.
I can’t go to the bank and say “give me my neighbors balance”
Reverse Domain Hijacking is on the rise, bigtime, and attorneys are coming after your generic domains. Multiple domain owners should fear this tool. It is very easy to be painted as a cybersqatter.
Consider this. Fully 1/3 of domains involving 3-letter .coms are lost by the respondent. So if you think your generics are safe think again.
November 12th, 2007 at 9:23 am
Everytime I see the the link to purchase a list of the domains I own or have owned, I get pissed. Some of the reasons are obvoius, even if the data is/was public. I don’t want the historical data used to gain an advantage or to violate my privacy.
To be blunt, I think it sucks and I will have to make sure all of my domains include privacy protection.
November 12th, 2007 at 9:53 am
Cartoonz is RIGHT ON with his assesment of the potential abuse the tool can create.
Never mind whether or not this info is available elswhere, this tool is way to easy to find/use for the average internet user.
The blatant text that shouts out; “THIS GUY OWNS 4000 DOMAINS” makes
him an easier target than any other tool out there.
PLEASE TAKE IT DOWN
November 12th, 2007 at 10:34 am
By putting up this tool you are betraying the trust of everyone who uses your whois tool. I go out of my way to use other sites that offer similar services before using your tools for the sole reason that the information is cached and then later sold. As a domainer who values privacy, using your whois service is like shooting myself in the foot.
I dont remember agreeing to have the information I was searching cached for future sale.
Check your own privacy policy under “What information do we collect?”
November 12th, 2007 at 10:46 am
It’s a tool making it easy for a Hijacker to Steal ALL of someone’s Portfolio instead of just one or two domains IMO – They may have stumbled upon a handful of domains in the past with a vulnerable email , Now they can possibly access thousands of domains at one time.
We all know how hard it is to get a domain returned through various registrars – Could you imagine half or All of your portfolio vanishing over night ?
Take it down IMO …. Mark
November 12th, 2007 at 11:06 am
Congratulations Jay for this wonderful tool.
“As The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2003 that Internet domain names had the same rights to protection against conversion as other intangibles under California law. Judge Alex Kozinksi said registering domain names were no different than “staking a claim to a plot of land at the title office.” ”
So, if the Whois is a public data according to ICANN and the law, that information should be public in order to have transparency and a fair domain business around.
Keep up!
.. Maestrus
November 12th, 2007 at 11:41 am
Take it down. You have no right to abuse registrant data in this manner.
November 12th, 2007 at 1:05 pm
I think i need available in the Address i am usibg here for check the domains in my email address, because someone can fake the email asa a reseller. Is possible a priest will be withoput knowledge owner of 3x sites. Then, i need the right thing is make available for YOUR OWN ADDRESS.
And privacy argument cost is dummy, domaincentral.com
and RC get for free.
November 12th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
This tool, in my opinion, helps the “big” guys more than the “little” guy. In the U.S., there are companies and entities that have endless amounts of funds and this tool makes it ever so easy for the “big” guys to paint the “little” guy in a poor light. Remember, this industry is still new and the interpretation of who has prior rights and whether something that used to be a generic term now has trademark attachments is constantly changing. The domain industry has been allowing the little guy, with legitimate and proper uses, a way to build a road towards prosperity.
I feel that this tool widens the gap and will only help mega corporations and make it much more difficult for we, the little guys, to defend legitimate registration and use. Jay, you have so many other areas to expand your business such as domain insurance, domain parking, auction services, etc. Any tool can be used for good or bad depending on whose hand wields it. Remember, as the tool maker, you have a responsibility to think about whether it will build something or destroy something. I am just left feeling that I will end up getting hammered even though I have done nothing wrong. The big money and lawyers can pound you into the ground and this tool seems to make their job much, much easier. I appreciate you being open to this discussion and I hope that you will come to the conclusion to take this tool down.
If you decide to keep it up, I would like you to allow an opt-out free of charge that would include the deletion of records older than one (1) year. This tool is more like a “credit report” and the U.S. passed laws requiring credit card companies to allow an individual an opportunity to opt-out to keep companies from peering into the credit history of a person. I think this tool/service is very much the same thing as it provides a means to peer in my existing domain position as well as my domain history.
November 12th, 2007 at 2:19 pm
I don’t have whois privacy protection on any of my 3000+ domains since I want people to see that they are for sale or in development.
So long as Jay is simply harvesting public information, I don’t see any legal or moral violation. If someone wants to remain in steal mode, they should use whois privacy for more reasons than just Jay’s Registrant Search.
Most people don’t realize that anyone can go to your town hall and look up the real estate and cars that you own along with your political affiliation and more.
Registrant Search sounds like it is simply like hiring a “private investigator” to gain publicly available information.
Also, if Registrant Search is disabled then past whois records should be banned along with public whois in general.
Rob Sequin
http://SearchDomainsForSale.com
November 12th, 2007 at 2:22 pm
@begone123
“No body starting today would have access to this historical whois data. I’m not saying it doesn’t exist out there, of course it does. but no one except the government could compile it.”
That’s not true there are others who have this data in the private sector. They have even have more complete data than Jay.
Maybe they will build a BETTER tool and only make it available, for millions of dollars, to the Chinese government.
This tool is absolutely critical to add more legitimacy and liquidity to the domain name market place. The only arguements against it people have are because they seem afraid that their naive mistakes in the past can suddenly be revealed.
This is public data and Domain Tools is merely providing a nice interface to access it. Once you put something out there in the WHOIS it is freely and publicly available.
November 12th, 2007 at 2:59 pm
Jay, what I would like to see is your charging authorities,government,police,lawyers,trademark corps etc etc TRIPLE the usual fee, and then your charging us mere mortals 1/3rd the usual feel, i.e. the authorities,government,police,lawyers,trademark corps etc etc
would thus be subsidising our useage and thus give us more access and level the playing field even more.
Just a thought.
November 12th, 2007 at 3:13 pm
This is not all that different than other privacy discussions in the news. Most people don’t mind having little pieces of personal information out there by themselves as they are generally pretty harmless unless consolidated. However, when you start collecting and consolidating data the chance that that data could be used in a harmful way start to increase exponentially. For example, if you know my social security number, name, mothers maiden name, and date of birth as a single piece of information, it can be abused, but its more difficult. However, if you know all of those things together it’s pretty easy to convince someone you would have to be that person and steal their identity, kidnap their kids, or track them down for good or bad purposes. The same discussion is going on now with consolidating health data for quick availability in emergencies and sharing among doctors to coordinate health care. What opponents are worried about is use of the consolidated data by insurance companies, employers, and those who could have other intended uses not in the best interest of the individual.
Domain information consolidation is not all that different. Knowing the total number of domains, registrars used, domains held and previously held, different contact information used, and so forth goes over that grey line in my opinion into invasion of privacy. This tool available to the general public will only encourage more proxy registrations which reduces the value of the whois on single domains. I hold many domains for personal and business use as well as for development and sale. I don’t want my personal and business uses consolidated, confused, or associated with each other. Imagine if you eventually drive all domain holders to proxy registrations, you would then have a totally useless whois database full of proxy service owners. I am generally against individual domain whois privacy, and would hate to see this tool actually encourage its growth and force more domain owners to go underground to avoid it. It will also increase costs in the domain market as more registrars will charge for privacy if they see larger profitable market for it.
I can see it being used in cases maybe where a subpoena is issued showing cause to get the data and reviewed by a judge and released by law. Actually, knowing the data is out there will now make that possible even if you discontinue the service. However, to offer it to anyone with the cash is careless in my opinion. Particularly since it favors the bigger business, and deeper pockets who can afford to buy the data.
November 12th, 2007 at 3:51 pm
Hi Everyone,
I was involved in this tool and its development in some of its earlier days. I have much respect for Jay as an entrepreneur … and I had a sense that this idea, when it became widely available, would cause a stir. Lo and behold it has!
One thing that working on the internet has taught me (and I think I’ve heard Jay say this as well) is that you don’t go on the internet to NOT be found. In fact, the internet is for finding people and communicating, not hiding. At least in North America (and some other places) this means that the whois for any domains you own is a matter of public record. If domain portfolio owners really see themselves as legitimate business people, then they should have NO PROBLEM with the public knowing what virtual properties they own. CEOs and other financial officers of corporations are required to publicly divulge information about their earnings and assets — why? Because there is a public interest in having that information available. In a similar way, is also in the public interest to maintain a free and transparent system that identifies domain owners. So if you oppose Jay’s tool, you really have a root problem with the whois system — not Jay.
It’s true that the purpose of WHOIS has changed greatly from when it was introduced. It used to be a purely technical facility — so that people would know who to call when servers went down etc. Now it has many uses. One essential one, I think, is to keep domain owners honest. If that bothers people, then the problem might be with their own behavior (past or present), not this tool.
Two other tidbits, from a legal point of view:
1. The idea that Jay is somehow breaking the law by caching whois is absurd. Registrars have the “packaging, resale and reuse” language in their TOS mostly to enable them to fight spammers and other clear abusers of whois information, as in the Register.com/Verio case in 2000. Clearly they are entitled to do this by agreement with ICANN. But whois info is NOT the property of the registrars. Rather, once it is provided by a registrar, whois is PUBLIC information for use by anyone for any legal purpose. The registrars just happen to be the ones required to provide the information to anyone, on request. It’s absurd to think that a registrar can “brand” a piece of public data and then have control over how it’s used when it leaves their hands. They have no such control, except in cases of the abuse detailed in the ICANN agreement.
2. I do have some sympathy for domainers worried about increased UDRP exposure because of this tool. There are lots of BS UDRPs out there. However, as most people here know, there are three criteria that must be established for someone to lose a domain because of a UDRP: there must be a TM violation or confusing similarity, there must be no legitimate claim AND bad faith must be demonstrated. All three of these things have to be proven. The only one that can be supported by data coming from Jay’s tool (whether historical or not) is the bad faith criteria (pattern of behavior etc.) The point is that you will only lose a domain if you are actually abusing someone’s TM. And if you’re doing that, then you should lose the domain! That said, I think there are too many disputes and other legal actions being lobbed around these days, and I would personally get tired of responding to BS claims.
Call me biased, but I think Jay should KEEP THE TOOL — there’s nothing wrong with it. In fact, it will shine a bright and healing light into places in this industry that desperately need it.
And as for the personal security of people owning millions of dollars of assets …. um …. I think rich people have had to worry about protecting themselves from crooks for thousands of years. But there are lots of good things about owning a million-plus dollars in domain assets right?
November 12th, 2007 at 3:56 pm
Hmmm – I just used it and managed to find 40 names owned by 2 different people in very little time (30 mins) WITHOUT PAYING for it! (or doing anything illegal or automated)
How safe is that ?
I think it will force more domainers to use whois privacy IMO
November 12th, 2007 at 4:48 pm
Re: above post 96 (quote) “there’s nothing wrong with it. In fact, it will shine a bright and healing light into places in this industry that desperately need it.”
“Bright and healing light”?!, what a total load of horse hockey. I fail to see how being able to spy on your business competitor’s activities, while lining the DomainTools pockets at the same time, can be considered either bright or healing. See my original post #14 above.
DomainTools, you’ve managed to pull off the trifecta of angering & upsetting people this weekend. Please consider withdrawing this invasion of privacy tool.
November 12th, 2007 at 5:21 pm
1/ Whois records were created to know who registered a domain name and that’s all.
It was never intended to cross data between the whole Whois records of each registry.
This is a totally different use that would require an authorization from ICANN with safeguards regarding the duration data is kept, the necessity of an opt-out system…
2/ wildhippy said :The point is that you will only lose a domain if you are actually abusing someone’s TM.
You are clearly biased.
The issue with TMs is not that simple.
Almost every (generic) dictionary word has one or several TMs.
Name Intelligence can’t be both auctioning domains that are trademarked words and then sell services to law firms to help them seize these newly acquired domain names, sometimes bought for 6 figures or more by investors.
Let’s take the list of domains that were available at last Domain Roundtable auction.
was available for US$110,000 http://blog.domaintools.com/2007/08/cabcom-for-110000/
CAB.COM
The word CAB has 5 US trademarks
Registration Number 3011330
Registration Number 3290838
Registration Number 1131467
Registration Number 2146935
Registration Number 2209530
Let’s take EVENT.COM
(sold for $165,000)
Found 8 US trademarks for the word EVENT
Registration Number 1537086
Registration Number 2649850
Registration Number 2326425
Registration Number 2342659
Registration Number 2444011
Registration Number 2469399
Registration Number 2504067
Registration Number 3093081
I won’t screen the whole list of domains available for auction at Domain Roundtable, i’m sure there are lots of other names that are trademarked words.
You can’t be on both sides, auctioning domain names potentially infriging someone’s trademark and providing tools to prove bad faith and cybersquatting, which is he word used when you own more than 10 domains.
November 12th, 2007 at 5:22 pm
“Also if I was a domain Hijacker I could use this tool to target the best victims. Almost any email address can be cracked, so why not crack the email of someone who has 1000 great domains. This is a time saver for theives. Or in reverse lets say I crack a email that for a domain I want. I can use your tool to find out what other domains the guy owns.”
The email can be found even with a whois so its not that reason to take it down, people can find your domains too not how many but all those that they are interested so i think this tool should go on
November 12th, 2007 at 5:57 pm
I’ve been spied at, stalked at (like calling me in the middle of the night), been insulted and being told of being a criminal (court decided in my favour), been taken to court again (I’ll win again) all because of domain names I own or owned.
Jay, you can see what domain names I own, but ONLY you, because you only display my Alias: whois_sc75734 in this comment and this is the only reason why I’m posting these sentences. Otherwise I’d keep quiet even when there’s reason to speak up. I’m tired of defending myself. BUT if you keep the registrant search online I’ll find a way to put faked data into the whois of ALL my domains, as the current state of transparency is not what I can live with.
November 12th, 2007 at 6:05 pm
Just to add two points to my previous statement:
1. No – I’ve never had any trademark-issues as Jay may confirm looking at my domain names – nearly all my trouble was previously for freedom of speech related or issues with foreign countries strange laws and in no way commercial violation of trademarks.
2. There are enough ways to get more information about a registrant of more than just a handful of domain names and you already fully cooperate with law enforcement agencies if needed. So if you’re talking about market transparency it means “market transparency to those whose gain is going to be bigger than the relatively high costs for this service” and it’s rare that these people are going to be the good guys…
November 12th, 2007 at 6:40 pm
Do you need money a lot more than the repercussions of creating a bunch of enemies? (because this looks like a pile of lawsuits waiting to happen) Selling away other people’s privacy seems like a very risky and sleazy way to get rich. If you must do this, then perhaps you should at least provide your paying members the option to have their portfolio info blocked by disabling the Registrant Search links for any domain associated with their account.
November 12th, 2007 at 6:48 pm
I must say this is the most honest thing (tool) that has happened in this industry in a long time. Is it me, or do others get sick of knowing who most of the cheaters, scammers, and BSr’s are in this business are and most of the “domain industry leadership” turns their heads? Even ICANN. Justifying their irresponsibility and shameful registrations to each other. If you are pulling carp and profiting off it, I hope all of your ill-gotten gains are taken away from you and given to those that earned them. Shining a bright light can burn or guide. This is one tool that will help prevent those in leadership responsibility from continuing to turn a blind eye and will help keep people accountable and responsible.
November 12th, 2007 at 7:02 pm
May be Jay should come up with a tool that puts light on which corporation has how many domains and how many they have acquired via REVERSE DOMAIN HIJACKING from small domainers. Why not expose the greedy corporations than take away the livelihood of small time domainers by making them targets of these greedy corporations.
Like I said before, please take this tool down as it helps the greedy big corporations and hurts your domainer friends.
This tool won’t earn a good reputation for domaintools within your core client group of domainers.
Regarding comments from some other poster who want to keep this tool:
It is very obvious that these people are either from greedy corps or they are late to the game and now want to see other domainers get hurt…..classic cases of sour grapes
Anyway, decision is yours…we can just request as we don’t want you to facilitate the invasion of our privacy! And your tool does exactly that: invades our privacy and puts us domainers and our families in the harms way.
Thanks for giving this opportunity for share our sentiments with you.
November 12th, 2007 at 7:30 pm
Okay Jay, I think you’ve accomplished your mission here. You’ve changed the subject from your mobi appology to this. Good idea, now everyone’s forgotten about the mobi misreporting…
November 12th, 2007 at 8:04 pm
Wildhippy,
Im not too knowledgeable when it comes to whois laws, rules, and regulations so can you clarify a couple things you said since you are speaking from a legal point of view?
YOU SAID: “Registrars have the “packaging, resale and reuse” language in their TOS mostly to enable them to fight spammers and other clear abusers of whois information”
Q: You said “mostly” here. What are some of the other reasons why registrars say not to package, resale, and reuse the whois info?
Q2: Would it be against any rules or laws if I wanted to whois a very large group of domains then take that data and resale it?
YOU SAID: “Rather, once it is provided by a registrar, whois is PUBLIC information for use by anyone for any legal purpose.”
Q: If the whois records are being scanned for a service like ‘Registrant Search’ isn’t it for the very purpose to “package, resale, and reuse” them?
I have asked a few others about whois laws/rules and many are in the dark about this so if you can answer that would be great.
Thanks
November 12th, 2007 at 8:15 pm
Jay the real money for you will be in auctions and parking. I’m guessing you only sell a few of these reports a day. A well run parking program could easily bring in $100k a day.
None of the bigger players in parking want this tool up.
The big players in parking also have the domains to auction.
The big players will be the victims of this tool.
I think this tool is counter productive to your long term goals. It will alienate the very people you need for parking and auctions.
This is a tool for Lawyers and crooks.
I could go on and on about how it would be really stupid to run a parking company and offer this tool at the same time, but I am sure you can figure the rest out.
November 12th, 2007 at 8:25 pm
Wildhippy,
My bad on Question 3…its not the whois records DomainTools is reselling its data mined from the whois records, so please answer in that regard.
Thanks
November 12th, 2007 at 9:08 pm
It’s been said that domains are valuable. Yet nobody has actually made a case for a valuable domain. TM’s? Guess what. An altered TM may actually have more value than the original.
Don’t be brainwashed. You could have a URL ripped out of your hands and could start tomorrow with a new domain. It may actually be healthy for your business.
November 12th, 2007 at 9:31 pm
@begone123
“This is a tool for Lawyers and crooks.” This is a tool for lawyers, no doubt, and that will be certainly be used against crooks. So, you are correct in a way.
November 12th, 2007 at 9:38 pm
To me it’s just competitive analysis, and there is nothing wrong with the service. Network Solutions used to offer it years ago before they became NetSol.com
.
Whois data is already public, so you are just offering an easy tool to look at whois data in mass. Forget the people that want to hide it … they are borderline crooks anyway with the amount of typosquatted domains most of them probably own.
Jay … I haven’t yet used it, but I do intend on it. If you plan on removing it, please email me before you do so I can make some last minute purchases.
November 12th, 2007 at 10:09 pm
I’m not one to bite my tongue … so I wanted to add more.
While I very much enjoyed meeting Frank at the round table conference let’s face the fact; He didn’t move to the Cayman’s because of the weather. He did it to hide money and not pay taxes.
I couldn’t care less if someone knows what domains I own. Heck I’ll post the list of the 200+ here if people want. If you take it down your just succumbing to the pressure of the “got lucky got rich” domainers. Also, as soon as Yahoo & Google get enough slack from advertisers, they’ll drop all of the parked sites because they rarely attract a sale even though clicks are a-plenty and they are costing advertisers billions every year.
All these domainers talk about being visionaries and saying they made fortune’s because they saw change in how the internet was used. However, now that other visionaries are coming around the bend with ways of reporting on the industry (Jay is #1 … I think Compare.com
is very well done also) … all of the domainers are totally spooked. I say keep it up, and anyone that questions it … you just say “suck it up” to them.
November 12th, 2007 at 10:11 pm
Edit …. I meant Compete.com
not Compare.com
November 12th, 2007 at 10:19 pm
Hi Jay
I think this is my first post. I feel “exposed” with this information so readily available for an array or reasons. You should do away with it. Because of this “new” tool, I’m about to make all my names private. This sucks because it’s a few thousand dollars I didn’t anticipate spending on account of this new “tool.” A tool is something domainers can use, NOT protect themselves from. Rethink it please.
November 12th, 2007 at 10:52 pm
@webquest
First I should say that I’m not a lawyer so take anything I say with a huge grain of salt. Maybe if there are some IP attorneys out there they could be more specific. So the following comes from how I read the ICANN registrar agreement, and also from what I’ve been able to pick up talking to domain lawyers:
Q1: I guess I said people could do “mostly” whatever they wanted with whois data because there is some uncertainty in how the ICANN agreement might be interpreted. I’m not clear on all the details, but here’s what I get. Registrars own the some of the whois data while it is in their posession. For example, they are not required to allow mass access to it — that’s why registrars are allowed to meter their whois servers. However, once it has left their possession (eg though a whois query) the ICANN agreement says that they are not allowed to “impose terms and conditions on use of the data provided, except as permitted by policy established by ICANN” (Section 3.3.5) As far as I know, the only two “policies established by ICANN” on this account are: a) you can’t spam and b) you can’t use the data to jam up the systems of any registry or registrar.
There is more to this story, however …
Q2: Would it be against the rules to whois a large group of domains and then reuse that data?
The only way in which use of whois information is restricted by ICANN is: a) must be lawful and b) can’t be any kind of spam or marketing.
That said, as we all know, registrars can and do put additional restrictions on the use of their whois data. This is a gray area, but is some interesting case law about how enforcible these extra restrictions are. As it turns out, they ARE sometimes enforcible, so I would be careful. The famous example is the battle between Verio and Register.com
. Here’s the ruling:
http://www.icann.org/registrars/register.com-verio/decision-23jan04.pdf
Basically, there’s a clause in the ICANN agreement that says that the agreement creates “no third party beneficiaries” … meaning that no third party can claim rights based on the argument that a registrar is in breach of its agreement with ICANN. It’s been ruled that ICANN alone can make the registrar give out whois information without any additional restrictions. The courts cannot demand that a registrar do this simply because the other party to the agreement (ICANN) must complain first. You can bring a complaint directly to ICANN about a registrar’s additional restrictions. What response you’ll get I have no idea, but I can guess.
So to summarize, you can do whatever you want with whois data as long as it is not spam or marketing and it doesn’t make a registrar want to try to enforce their additional rules against you. I think I probably over-stated a position in my previous post … but this is my understanding about what the law says.
Regarding the specific language “package, resale, and reuse” … I think that is there to broaden registrars’ power as much as possible so that they can DECIDE what kinds of “reuse” to go after. The question they no doubt ask is whether the “reuse” affects them negatively or not.
Oh also webquest, it is very difficult to obtain many many whois records in a legal manner. Registrars highly meter their whois servers to prevent this, so your questions are in a way rather moot. Performing whois lookups on “a very large group of domains” is a very very difficult thing to do. Do you think the large registrars of the world don’t know that Jay is doing what he does? I don’t think they mind.
November 12th, 2007 at 11:35 pm
Your “tool” is stupid. Just because I own one typo domain doesn’t mean the general public has the right to snoop into my portfolio and look for other typos I may or may not have (unless they are willing to pay me for my time, at least one thousand times what I have invested in the domain name in question). I don’t want to be bothered with threats of lawsuits from ANYBODY. Jay, clearly your only intention with creating this tool was to put me and people like me out of business. Are lawyers and the government more important to you than your fellow domain investors? Anyway, it’s the stupid company’s fault for not registering every typo and top level domain possible for every one of their brands.
November 13th, 2007 at 2:10 am
Jay,
Here in GB there are laws on Data Protection ACT that is there to protect people from various crime of identity thefts and so on.
Reasons why you should think carefully:
1) Your tools reveals too much of private information about a person without their knowledge.
2) It gives anyone with with bit of money to get hold of this information but real genuine person would rather contact the owner of the domain and take it from there. You are creating a feeding frenzy for criminals.
Honestly I do not like to put a good useful tool to its death but this one touches very border line in the sense any ethical person/organisation on internet should to some degree offer people bit of protection for everyone. Given that most state and countries does not have a eCrime Investigation Group you are helping the criminals through this tools if not your are creating more criminals where there is no protection for the victims.
Here’s how you should change things to make it better:
1) Make it optional so that those wish to decide to put their information in the open let them decide/choose.
2) Comply with national and international data protection and data retention laws across the world. Think of Google Search History case for a minute.
3) Make the tool only accessible to Police and federal bureau only when they are dealing with an offence/crime and also you must notify the person before releasing his or her information (at least send them an email saying so and so requested your information).
4) Make the information available to its owner through Freedom of Information Act so that they me see what information you hold on them.
5) #3 also applies to press and media people. You must notify the owner of information so that I may be aware of who is buying my information. Off course the person would have no right to stop you from handing over this information but an indication would most useful.
6) Make is tool accessible for people who has been victim of people to prove their ownership of a domain to stop cybersquatting from taking domain from people.
7) Use your tool for a greater good of men to help and protect the victim of abuse of human/civil rights.
Reading so far I think general consensus is that you take the tool down, but end of the day I’d ask you this question: Would you be able to live with it knowing that you have been the cause of someone’s suffering as result of the tool you have created?
If you after money like some people then I suppose you’d feel nothing.
Think deeply are you an assistant to criminal or are you a protector of people?
November 13th, 2007 at 2:18 am
Jay,
please list my IDNs in native characters — most of the shitty search engines still haven’t coded a simple solution to this either, so you could actually take leadership role here.
Other than that, I would say that if it isn’t illegal, I don’t see a big problem with it. If it IS illegal, then I would say there IS probably a pretty big problem with it.
But IANAL….
ps: if someone violates IP law (for example by using a domain name to confuse people WRT trademarked brand names), is it permissible to search all of the registries in order to return a complete list (to check whether other IP violations may be happening also)? Perhaps opening up such data might lower the barrier to correct IP violations — insofar as it might be considered more “worth it” to go after 100 violations at once, rather than doing so one at a time. Therefore, I expect the largest outcry against offering such a service would come from persons who fear that such information might make them “juicy targets” for IP law suits.
November 13th, 2007 at 3:30 am
ProDevStudio is right about the UK Data Protection Act.
‘s Personal Information Toolkit says:
ico.gov.uk
“With crimes like identity theft increasing, it is even more important for you to safeguard your information.
Every day, you will give out your personal information in some way or another. However, although most of the personal information stored about you will provide benefits like better medical care and financial reassurance, it also brings dangers. If your personal information is wrong, out of date or not held securely, it can cause problems. You could be unfairly refused a job, benefits or credit, or a place at college. In extreme cases you could be a victim of identity theft or arrested for a crime you did not commit.
The Data Protection Act gives you the right to know what information is held about you and sets rules to make sure organisations handle your information properly. The Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations set out rules for people who wish to send electronic direct marketing, for example emails and text messages.”
November 13th, 2007 at 3:36 am
the international protocol at http://www.coe.int/T/E/Legal_affairs/Legal_co-operation/Data_protection/Background/
is as follows “In order to secure for every individual, whatever his/her nationality or residence, respect for his/her rights and fundamental freedoms, and in particular his/her right to privacy, with regard to automatic processing of personal data relating to him/her, the Council of Europe elaborated the “Convention for the Protection of Individuals with regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data” which was opened for signature on 28 January 1981. To this day, it still remains the only binding international legal instrument with a worldwide scope of application in this field, open to any country, including countries which are not members of the Council of Europe.”
and
“Privacy versus information
Data protection : why?
The increasing use of automated processing of personal data over the past few decades has exacerbated the risk of illegal use of personal data and facilitated their transfer across frontiers between countries with great differences in the level of protection provided to personal data.
The European Convention on Human Rights guarantees a number of political and civil rights among which figure the right to privacy (Article
and the right to information (Article 10), two rights which are potentially conflicting.
Faced with the need to reconcile two fundamental rights and ensure the same level of protection of these rights beyond national borders, the Council of Europe elaborated the “Convention for the Protection of Individuals with regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data” which was opened for signature on 28 January 1981. To this day, it still remains the world’s only binding international legal instrument in this field, open to signature by any country, including countries which are not members of the Council of Europe.
The European convention on data protection of 1981
The convention defines a number of principles for the fair and lawful collection and use of data. Notably, data can only be collected for a specific purpose and should not be used for any other reason. Data must be accurate, adequate for this purpose and stored only for as long as is necessary. The convention also establishes the right of access to and rectification of data for the person concerned (data subject), and requires special protection for data of a sensitive nature, for example on religion, political beliefs, genetics or medical information.
In order to become party to the convention, states must ensure that their national legislation contains these basic principles in respect of the personal data of every individual on their territory. Having thus created a common, minimum, level of protection, the free flow of personal data between states is authorised amongst parties to the convention. Two problems however, have been envisaged:
a. if the party of origin offers a higher level of protection of the personal data than the receiving party;
b. if the transfer of data is to a third state not party to the convention.
To facilitate transborder flows of data between states which do not ensure equivalent protection of data, in 1992 the Consultative Committee of the Convention for the Protection of individuals with regard to Automatic processing of Personal Data elaborated a Model Contract which is used extensively by private operators. “
November 13th, 2007 at 3:49 am
AndICANN may be going to revise WHOIS in response to privacy concerns too.
from http://www.epic.org/privacy/whois/comments2.pdf
“Both the WHOIS Task Force and the WHOIS Working Group agree that new
mechanisms must be adopted to address an individual’s right to privacy and the protection
of his/her data.4 Current ICANN WHOIS policy conflicts with national privacy laws,
including the EU Data Protection Directive, which requires the establishment of a legal framework to ensure that when personal information is collected, it is used only for its
intended purpose. As personal information in the directory is used for other purposes and
ICANN’s policy keeps the information public and anonymously accessible, the database
could be found illegal according to many national privacy and data protection laws
including the European Data Protection Directive, European data protection laws and
legislation in Canada and Australia.5
The Article 29 Working Party, an independent European advisory body on data
protection and privacy, states that “in its current form the [WHOIS] database does not
take account of the data protection and privacy rights of those identifiable persons who
are named as the contacts for domain names and organizations.”6 The conflict with
national privacy law is real and cannot be dismissed. A sensible resolution of the WHOIS
matter must take this into account.
In addition, country code Top Level Domains are moving to provide more privacy
protection in accordance with national law.”
November 13th, 2007 at 4:06 am
QUOTE: BUT if you keep the registrant search online I’ll find a way to put faked data into the whois of ALL my domains, as the current state of transparency is not what I can live with. END QUOTE.
Probably too late. The data has probably been collected for years and I suspect that it is not freshly updated regularly. As domains are privately sold and traded a lot of information may continue to reflect the wrong who.is
info etc. So changing you who.is
info probably wouldn’t do any good for domains already in the database.
IMO selling this information is a violation of peoples privacy and does put some at risk. I would definately vote to take it down.
November 13th, 2007 at 5:04 am
@ Wildhippy
“there must be a TM violation or confusing similarity, there must be no legitimate claim AND bad faith must be demonstrated”
Anyone who is familiar with UDRP’s knows that for domain investors the cases almost always hinge on “bad faith”
I have never been involved in a case where the complainant couldn’t prove the fist two. Very few decisions have found parking a domain to be a legit use. And most complainants easily prove some sort of TM or implied TM.
So this tool is very very dangerous. It makes it very easy for a complainant to prove a pattern of behavior. Like I said before almost everyone with a large portfolio has some questionable domains.
Note; I have read hundreds of UDRP decisions and most pivot on “Bad faith”
A complainant is only going to mention the 3 or 4 domains that you own that are questionable and that will enough for most UDRP panels.
If you think your generics are safe you are dead wrong. Here is a link to all WIPO decisons. Just click on a year and you will see the domains listed on the right. Upon close inspection you will see that there are many generics being lost by respondents. And for the ones that are not lost, there is a great deal of time an money spent in defense.
As more late comers come into the space, you will see an increase in domain roulette and lawyers are more than happy to help them.
http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/decisions/index-gtld.html
November 13th, 2007 at 5:26 am
You are a data company that provides data from registrars largely to domainers.
It is not in flavour with domainers.
It breaches the published terms registrars provide their whois under.
The only reason your whois history has been allowed to stay is that it didnt ruffle too many feathers.
If you leave it up :
You will without doubt lose flavour with the industry.
You will be seen to be selling out domainers in the interests of making more money.
IP claims agaist domainers will increase
The reputation of the industry as a whole will decrease
Peoples portfolios will decrease in value, especially portfolios with quasi trademark issues
It wont take too many highly annoyed domainers campaigning against you to create action agaist you for privacy. Whois history will possibly also be under threat.
You will lose your reputation.
However you will make more money.
November 13th, 2007 at 7:12 am
This tool is very dangerous if you’re considering it so. For me and for a lots of my friends its very useful. I live in Argentina and I’m a freelancer. There is a lots of cases when somebody contacts you by e-mail saying that he/she would like to offer you a remote job. You contacting him by MSN or Google talk, discussing the project, all goes well and unexpectedly some day the guy just disappears. And all that you know its just his e-mail address with domain name in it. So you searching for it and thats how you can discover where from he is, which provider he uses and does he owns a legal website on secure webhosting or this is just another amateur connected through home cable connection. I know you have controlled all in US or Europe, but in the countries like where I live this is a real risk to deal with unknown people. This tools gives you an opportunity to investigate a little about your future client or person you about to star to work with. And if you have more privacy you can use the anonymous domain registrant service to hide your identity. Some providers are offering it for free. And on some of my sites I’m using it. Also that tool is useful because your potential clients can investigate about you more and to be sure that you’re clear. If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to be afraid. Thanks to all.
November 13th, 2007 at 8:25 am
begone123,
Most of those 2007 cases were flagrant abuses of TM infringement.
If the owner of airfrancesucks.com
slaps the domain on a parking page, then freedom of speech protection (US) will not protect him or her.
Had that owner actually developed a non-profit “it sucks” forum/blog, then he/she would probably be protected (see NoDaddy.com
).
November 13th, 2007 at 8:52 am
@MsDomainer
You said “Most of those 2007 cases were flagrant abuses of TM infringement.”
That is like say most people in the world are not going to die today.
That is no consolation to the millions of people in the world who will die today.
If you go through all the cases for all the years you will see several hundred generic domains have been stolen from their rightful owners. For example 1/3 of all LLL.com
domains are ordered transfered.
If 3-letter dot coms aren’t safe, nothing is safe. If you read those 3-letter dot com UDRP decisions, you will see that bad faith was always the deciding factor.
Note; WIPO is not the only provider of UDRP arbitrations.
November 13th, 2007 at 9:35 am
hmm — I see a somewhat controversial issue here:
I searched for Google inc.:
“We are currently only showing the oldest 1,000 whois records. There are 313,664 other records but we only allow users to order reports under 10,000 results. Please try to narrow your search.”
Does this mean that it is not possible to obtain reports for registrants with more than 10 K “results”?
November 13th, 2007 at 9:38 am
I think this service is an utter breach of privacy and a definitive risk to domain portfolio owners. Rest assured that I will ban the entire IP range of Name Intelligence from our servers and any hosted domains unless this matter gets resolved.
November 13th, 2007 at 9:56 am
I feel that’s rather draconian, info83305.
Sounds like I should do a search for “name intelligence” in order to make sure I’m not using a “miserable failure” of a search engine (i.e., if “name intelligence” were censored, that would tell me that your services would be rather unreliable).
Don’t you think you would be shooting yourself in the foot? (I wouldn’t want to have that kind of reputation…)
November 13th, 2007 at 10:14 am
I think this service should be taken down. It will not only hurt your brand but put many domainers into risky privacy violating circumstances. Who owns what is nobody’s business until the time comes for a transaction. Precautions and verification should be done when buying or selling a domain so both parties have their cards on the table. But generic exposure of ownership is a blatant violation of privacy. My business is MY business alone until I choose to transact with someone else. This has the potential for major abuse and aid thieves in stealing domains and harassing domain owners.
Thanks
David V
November 13th, 2007 at 10:19 am
Domain lookup by registrant is a very useful feature. Thanks for providing it. The concept that commercial web site operators can be anonymous has no basis in law.
A bit of legal background may help here. Several people have referred to the European Privacy Directive. That’s for individuals not engaged in business. If you’re doing business online, the European Electronic Commerce Directive (2000/31/EC) applies. Here’s the key section:
“Member States shall ensure that the service provider shall render easily, directly and permanently accessible to the recipients of the service and competent authorities, at least the following information:
(a) the name of the service provider;
(b) the geographic address at which the service provider is established …
Definitions: “service provider”: any natural or legal person providing an information society service.”
(Ref: http://www.sitetruth.com/doc/eucommercedirective.html)
That’s clear enough. In the European Union, site operators are required to disclose their name and address.
California has a similar law; see B&P code section 17538.
(Ref” http://www.sitetruth.com/doc/californiabpcode17538.html) Accept a credit card online without displaying your business name and address first, go to jail for six months. There have been convictions.
Then there’s 15 USC 1125, of course.
This provides a legal basis for cleaning up the Web. We at SiteTruth are doing just that. We automatically examine web sites and look for business name and address information. (We can find addresses in ordinary text, not just WHOIS information, and we have other data sources.) Then we try to tie the address to business records, Yellow Pages, incorporation records, business licenses, and such. This allows us to rate the legitimacy of web sites.
We use that legitimacy information to reorder search results. The more legitimate sites move to the top; the less legitimate sites move to the bottom. Most “domaining” sites, “landing pages”, typosquatting sites and similar junk move to the bottom and get a red “do not enter” sign next to them.
Try this at “http://www.sitetruth.com”. We’re in alpha test now, and you can comment on our blog if you like.
John Nagle
SiteTruth
November 13th, 2007 at 10:54 am
I can only agree with everyone saying that the service should be taken down.
BTW this must be the most commented post in your blog.
/Andreas
November 13th, 2007 at 11:34 am
Jay,
, I can potentially see the 123.com
and xyz.com
are owned by the same person. As far as the privacy issue, I don’t use private registration, as my site are or will be working sites. I don’t feel people trust a site where the owner is unknown. But as far as domainers are concerned, maybe they should use private registration.
I joined as a paying member to use the feature where I can see the domains on one server, which in reality just shows those on a particular IP Address. Since I run a lead service, I need to be able to determine these thing as I have had people sign up for my service just to use the customer’s email address to spam or send traffic to their site. This new tool can help me in a legitimate way to maybe discover who is doing it. For instance if Joe@123.com is sending visitors to xyz.com
November 13th, 2007 at 12:40 pm
Regardless of any comercial interests of any person or business above, it is a fundamental breach of ones fundamental rights.
If you were based in germany, I am 100% sure that you would have to appear many thousand times before the german courts, a manner of life most of the americans, canadians and people of the world have to not only learn to se or rather better say grasp but also make sure to practise.
The registrant service is a total garbage service which breaches into the provacy and self-determination of information of individuals or companies. They are business secrets and you wanna have to egoistic privilage of having applied your supperbly created technology to make money by breaching the privacy.
Thats actually a theft of information without an explicit consent of those companies.
However jay, looking to your (adamont) behaviour I have learned from the past, I beleive there is no use to offer the above words. You will adamontly do what you think it suits you the very best and not what is fair to company secrets or breach of privacy.
November 13th, 2007 at 12:56 pm
I work in affiliate marketing. Being able to get a list of other registered domain by an individual (or, better yet, a company) is invaluable in weeding out bad affiliates. Coming from someone who’s approached by fraudulent websites all the time, this tool is fantastic. Keep it.
November 13th, 2007 at 1:34 pm
Wildhippy,
Thanks for the reply…couple more from your last post…
YOU SAID: “…it is very difficult to obtain many many whois records in a legal manner. Registrars highly meter their whois servers to prevent this…Do you think the large registrars of the world don’t know that Jay is doing what he does? I don’t think they mind.”
You dont think the registrars mind, but you say they “highly meter their whois servers to prevent this”.
Doesn’t the fact that they are trying to prevent this show that they mind?
YOU SAID: “The question they no doubt ask is whether the “reuse” affects them negatively or not.”
Doesn’t slamming a registrars servers for data effect them negatively?
YOU SAID: “Regarding the specific language “package, resale, and reuse”…I think that is there to broaden registrars’ power as much as possible so that they can DECIDE what kinds of “reuse” to go after.”
Well, from the looks of it, and from what you said, it seems they are trying to prevent the harvesting of data in large quantities all together.
I don’t see them letting folks slam their servers and then deciding who they want to go after…I see them trying to prevent this large scaled data mining, just as you do (when you said, “Registrars highly meter their whois servers to prevent this”).
But it seems some are finding ways around their prevention and harvesting the data anyways…to in fact, “package, resale, and reuse” it.
You can say “I don’t think they mind” but I’d bet they do.
I bet while I type this very message, some registrars server is fighting off a whois data miner.
November 13th, 2007 at 1:42 pm
“methinks thou dost protest too much”
Sunlight is only offensive to those who wish to remain in the dark. There’s no way to prevent the dark side of the internet from doing the very same thing as Registrant Search. The horse is already out of the barn as far as “protecting privacy” — its too late.
Providing it for the public, and the outcry that goes with it, will help to educate users about the risks involved. If only the dark side uses it then it stays in the dark.
If a tool can be used for good and for evil, banning the public from using it will not prevent evil-doers from using it: it only puts the public at a disadvantage. Providing it to the public both puts them on notice and gives them the same tools, which actually may help prevent some of the excesses or abuses that it might otherwise be put to.
KEEP THIS TOOL.
November 13th, 2007 at 2:39 pm
Hi Jay,
It’s a great tool but like any other tool it has a double edged sword.
I would strongly argue that you keep this invaluable tool but only to those registered through DomainTools where you can keep track of the IP addresses of those requesting this information.
Thanks
November 13th, 2007 at 3:38 pm
As others have mentioned, I would like to request an opt-out feature so that people can not search for me by name, or generate any results that contain names in my portfolio.
November 13th, 2007 at 4:08 pm
Jay
This seems to go hand in hand with your policy of open and transparent domaining. I guess some people might find this threatening and can use the opt out option, when it is set up.
I did not feel threatened by this at all.
Nick
November 13th, 2007 at 4:12 pm
Typo and click alike TM domains = spam and scam.
I receive links to them all the time in my junk mail box.
Yeah, I’d like to see those domains dragged out into the sunlight and exposed for what they are.
Privacy will NOT protect you. In the face of a subpoena, registrars will roll over and cough up your delicate information, sometimes with just a threat from a lawyer or someone pretending to be a lawyer.
I remember when the first internet browsers were introduced to the general public; I never heard so many doomsday remarks about how the internet was going to ruin our culture. Well, the internet is here to stay, and it looks as though culture chugs along with it.
And when commerce came to the net, with sites accepting credit cards online, there was such an outcry about how security would be breached, but after a rough start, companies evolved and put protections into place.
The thing is: this Registrant Search technology already exists, and someone (if not Jay) will develop it and put it into use. I’d rather see someone like Jay use it than some anonymous crook using it for nefarious purposes. And if he makes a profit, why not?
At the very least, Jay recognizes the possible reprecussions of this tool.
I would be against an opt-out feature–if I were a crook, I’d be first in line to sign up for the opt-out feature. Had the wayback machine not had an opt-out feature for the crook who owned the domain I bought on the aftermarket, I would not have bought a domain with a “past.”
Shine that light brightly!
November 13th, 2007 at 4:28 pm
It looks like a lewsuit invitation.. class action probably.
November 13th, 2007 at 4:51 pm
There is an interesting story in the Wall Street Journal from November 9, 2007 which demonstrates the value of archiving historical Internet data to law enforcement.
Web Scammer Targets Senior U.S. Executives
http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB119456922698387317.html
The historical information on the domain name TheGov.org
referenced in the WSJ article is as follows:
http://whois.domaintools.com/thegov.org
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://thegov.org/
http://web.archive.org/web/*sr_1nr_30/http://thegov.org/*
http://web.archive.org/web/20021003100333/thegov.org/THE.jpg
Checkout the last URL for a picture of the alleged hacker described in the WSJ story. Can anyone identify the gun?
I spent an entire weekend in early October of this year, eradicating Emails from this gentleman, so I am not at all sympathetic to his privacy rights. With the exception of a few details, the WSJ story was very accurate.
This past week I investigated an eBay Phishing Email which was used a Tasted Domain with a hexadecimal like format to run a fraudulent eBay site which was engaged in identify theft. eBay security was notified. Here is the history on the Tasted Domain.
http://whois.domaintools.com/x0aax0x0x0x0x1a9as8d7r8.com
Here is the full Phishing URL which is now dead:
http://signin.ebay.com.943352.x0aax0x0x0x0x1a9as8d7r8.com/sc/saw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll/index.php?&ref=
Clearly Jay and his team have absolutely no respect for privacy.
Mike
November 13th, 2007 at 6:00 pm
A few months ago I was posting on Namepros. About ten seconds after my last post my front door was kicked down and the next thing I knew I was being held at gunpoint by at least four heavily armed members of the FARC. They were shouting to each other in Spanish and one of them who spoke English very well told me harshly that I need to transfer a bunch of domains to them. It was hard to deny anything: I had a domain name discussion forum and my Moniker account open right in front of me! At first I was reluctant, but then the translator showed me a paparazzi style photograph of my daughter playing at recess. They said they would kill her if their demands were not met. Now I knew they meant business, so I started transferring some domains that aren’t worth much, but then he furnished a full list of all the domains I own, complete with Domaintools logo on top! So I then transferred all my most valuable domains to their account. They said if I told anyone my family would surely be murdered. Jay, can you live with the guilt of being directly responsible for a man’s family being killed? Please take this tool down.
November 13th, 2007 at 8:17 pm
Keep it.
1. There is currently no good way, when I register an expired domain name, to identify all of the other domain names I can grab if they happen to be controlled by an admin contact email domain name using the domain I just bought.
2. You need to add more search capabilities, like zip code. After 9/11, a couple of decent domain names went up for grabs, because there was no efficient way to cross check the list of victims and businesses against domain registrations. The World Trade Center had its own zip code, but it was still tough at that time to tease out names, like worldteleport.org
, that still have World Trade Center addresses. I did manage to find a few, though, that made it to the drop. With a geographic search capability, someone else’s natural disaster is everyone else’s opportunity. When the “big one” hits San Francisco, I want to be ready to cash in.
3. Speaking of dead people, you already know about the “dead guy” hi-jack method used in, say, the raven.com
situation. I am occasionally contacted by estate administrators who have finally gotten around to trying to figure out what to do with the dearly departeds’ domains. With this tool, one can easily run obituaries, victim lists, and a lot of other data against domain registrations, and find domain names that the registrant isn’t going to be caring about any too soon, and long before the estate does. If they were using an ISP email address, it’s a pretty safe bet their ISP bill is going unpaid.
4. Know any domain registrants going in for major surgery? What a great time to file frivolous default UDRP proceedings! Woo-hoo.
November 13th, 2007 at 8:49 pm
Jay,
The real money is in Parking and auctions. Don’t let this tool be your downfall.
As I said before, screen shots of these reports have been entered into evidence against me in a lawsuit(last week to be exact).It is only a matter of time before every major domainer experiences the same thing. If not in a lawsuit, then a UDRP. As I pointed out before almost all UDRP’s pivot on the question of “bad faith.” If a complainant can find even one trademark domain in your portfolio or worst yet one that you used to own, then they will be able to prove you have a pattern of registering TM domains and hence be able to prove bad faith.
And don’t forget whoisprivacy is useless in terms of the historical data Jay is selling.
I don’t think that their is a domainer out their who has not owned a few TM domains at one time or the other.
The people who are saying that someone else is going to offer this tool just don’t know what they are talking about. When NetSol used to offer this service they told you what people currently owned, not historical data about domains people used to own. And, I have never seen a report from Mark Monitor with hisorical info. I don’t know what name.com
has but I doubt it is anything like Jay’s tool.
Anyway the registrars are very clear in their TOS. They don’t want their whois data repackaged. I really don’t understand what Wildhippy
is talking about. I’d love to hear what John Berryhill has to say on this matter. I’d like to hear what some of the registars have to say.
November 13th, 2007 at 8:52 pm
@HBaker – Bravo!…While I disagree, your post was at least very entertaining. Sell that screenplay and you won’t have to worry about domain names at all.
November 13th, 2007 at 8:54 pm
Hey John I was writing the above post while you posted. What a coincidence. Of course you are for the tool; You are a lawyer. But what about the TOS of the reigistars.
November 13th, 2007 at 8:57 pm
info32036: I am in your camp. I was dramatising some of the other posts here.
November 13th, 2007 at 9:00 pm
Blah Blah Blah all I hear is a bunch of fear mongers.
This tool is 100% legal and 100% with in ICANN policies. Whether its moral or not is another question and not the question he asked and since there are several other services that offer a similar tool its pointless to take offline.
The only thing that I suggest is remove the history and only use current records.
That will quell the fear mongers and only reduce the tools effectiveness slightly.
FWIW its required by ICANN to use real info in the Admin and Techinical Contacts. These privacy services are the ones violating the policies of ICANN.
You can’t have your cake and eat it too. And thats why I believe the tool should remain online in its current form, but suggested the easiest way to quell the fear mongers is remove the history search.
For those who have no clue what the proverb I used means,
http://www.bartleby.com/59/3/youcanthavey.html
November 13th, 2007 at 9:01 pm
@HBaker…ah…felt like I was reading John Grisham.
November 13th, 2007 at 9:29 pm
Please let us Opt-Out!
November 13th, 2007 at 9:49 pm
Why does it matter what any of *us* think? The privacy laws issue alone are why it should not be used/made available. I think consulting with lawyers from Canada, GB, etc etc is in order to find out how much this violates existing laws and what the potential financial repurcussions would be to your company you’ve worked so hard to build is in order.
November 14th, 2007 at 12:33 am
I do not care one bit about why you all think it should be OK. I do not care what you think ‘other bad’ domainers are doing. I can not think of one person with a sizable portfolio or families to consider who would want anything to do with this.
I have ZERO TM names and do not care what other domainers do with their money. If a company wants to get a TM case going with WIPO, they can hire some teen for a day to run a check on every possible variation of their name or buy their own software to check their own TM variations.
I am VERY angry that this service is available. What I reg and the # of regs I have is NO ONE ELSES BUSINESS but my own. I can not think of ONE valid reason for this service to exist. Not one! If some one wants info an a name I own, they can look up that one name. They don’t need to know every name I have PLUS where I live, what my name is, my phone # and my company name. Lets think about identity theft, personal safety and here is one.. COMMON SENSE.
What gives YOU the right to collect info on ME and SELL it without my permission? I don’t know you, you never asked me and I certainly never agreed to this when I registered my names. One person searching for a name they want is not even close to one person searching every name I own along with all of my ersonal data.
I think I will speak to a lawyer about this. I think I will also contact all my registrars. I already sent out an email to Monte. Be prepared for some rough seas, Jeff. There is no way I am going to sit back and allow my personal data and investments make you money. You have no right!
I hope this was ‘articulate’ enough for you.
November 14th, 2007 at 12:54 am
“john_berryhill Says:
Keep it.
1. There is currently no good way, when I register an expired domain name, to identify all of the other domain names I can grab if they happen to be controlled by an admin contact email domain name using the domain I just bought.
2. You need to add more search capabilities, like zip code. After 9/11, a couple of decent domain names went up for grabs, because there was no efficient way to cross check the list of victims and businesses against domain registrations. The World Trade Center had its own zip code, but it was still tough at that time to tease out names, like worldteleport.org
, that still have World Trade Center addresses. I did manage to find a few, though, that made it to the drop. With a geographic search capability, someone else’s natural disaster is everyone else’s opportunity. When the “big one” hits San Francisco, I want to be ready to cash in.
3. Speaking of dead people, you already know about the “dead guy” hi-jack method used in, say, the raven.com
situation. I am occasionally contacted by estate administrators who have finally gotten around to trying to figure out what to do with the dearly departeds’ domains. With this tool, one can easily run obituaries, victim lists, and a lot of other data against domain registrations, and find domain names that the registrant isn’t going to be caring about any too soon, and long before the estate does. If they were using an ISP email address, it’s a pretty safe bet their ISP bill is going unpaid.
4. Know any domain registrants going in for major surgery? What a great time to file frivolous default UDRP proceedings! Woo-hoo.”
If you are not joking, you are one SICK person IMO.
November 14th, 2007 at 1:44 am
HJ2222 that was a joke.
John Berryhill is against it too, just like us.
November 14th, 2007 at 2:43 am
“I do not care one bit about why you all think it should be OK.”
If you don’t care about their opinions, then why should they care about yours?
Unfortunately, Jay, this tool poses various potential risks for registrants. Not to mention there are potential legal issues, depending on who’s up to forcing it in court.
November 14th, 2007 at 4:06 am
I am against it. Should be closed.
November 14th, 2007 at 5:11 am
Hi Jay,
I am speaking from a differant perspective, I am not a business making money out of my domain.I am just a guy with a hobby and when I see my personnel details being available, for everyone to see it is very worrying for me and my family. I would urge you Jay to take this down so I can stop worrying.
Best regards
Pete.
November 14th, 2007 at 5:50 am
I have been really quite amused by all the threats of class action lawsuits directed at Jay on this BLOG. Have any of you considered the consequences of a class action lawsuit against Domain Tools? You would have to prove damages in a US court of law. Plaintiffs would have to be identified which means that some of you would have to come out of your Caribbean hidey-hole’s. Either the plaintiffs or Domain Tools would have to submit full list of the Domains involved in the litigation which means the real identities of the owners of potentially millions of Domains would be a matter of public record in a US court of law. Even if the plaintiffs won the case which I believe is unlikely they would lose in the end.
The United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS) routinely monitors class action lawsuits involving large sums of money and has access to the court records. With the Domain ownership records the IRS can easily calculate the net potential income from your Domain assets over the period of time which these records cover. For US citizens the IRS can then compare your tax returns (You do file accurate tax returns don’t you?) with the estimated net worth of your Doman holdings. As there is no statute of limitations for income tax evasion in the United States the IRS can go after everything you own if they determine that there are discrepancies. But the real fun has only stated.
If the IRS can prove that there is an organized national or international conspiracy to defraud the United States of taxes the RICO laws can be applied. Under RICO the IRS can seize all of your assists which include your millions of Domain names. You will look back on WIPO as to good-old-days.
Before any of you start threatening Jay with law suites I would strongly urge that you retain the services of a good tax adviser and a good criminal attorney. Remember that most of the members of organized crime who went to prison did so for income tax evasion and not whacking their business associates. When you are dealing with the IRS be afraid by very afraid.
Mike
November 14th, 2007 at 6:42 am
This is extremly nice and unique domain tool. You should keet it permanently on DomainTools.com
. To know more about public information is everyone’s right. Best wishes for more innovative domain tools in future.
November 14th, 2007 at 9:30 am
Please explain what is different about knowing who owns a website from being able to finding following:
1. searching the county/muncipality public records to see who owns a property-finding where someone lives.
2. search any county record to see how much you paid for your property
3. see how much you pay in taxes
4. search to see if you have a mortgage, how much of a mortgage
5. Are there any judments against you, have you been sued- any federal tax liens, divorce information
6. What companies do you own
7. Check the Department of Motor Vehicles to see what kind of car or boat you own,
8. etc……
All of this information is readily available online for the world to see, why not who owns a domain?
November 14th, 2007 at 10:54 am
Jay,
Keep it up.
Let anybody opt out of database paying a fee.
Regards,
November 14th, 2007 at 11:33 am
I agree with those who have posted about this new report beign an invasion of privacy and it’s terrible that Domain Tools is making it even easier for crooks to threaten personal safety.
As an Internet marketer I find this new tool very troubling. I work hard finding niches and setting up a site and now someone can go to domain tools and buy a report listing out all my domains! Since most of us host many domains under one account it’s easy pickings.
I feel like a fool because I always used public WHOIS registration. I always said, I have nothing to hide. I didn’t care that my business contact information was public but not ALL my domains in one report.
I don’t want competitors having access to my domains and my niches. As Internet marketers we keep our successful niches secret but now with all these spy “tools” it’s becoming a joke.
I’m not a billion dollar public company, I’m a one man shop and I don’t see why the domains I own should be anyones business but my own.
Please take this new feature down.
November 14th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
mg1 Says:
Jay,
Keep it up.
Let anybody opt out of database paying a fee.
Regards,
——————————————–
Brilliant, opt out by paying a fee.
Extortion? A fee to whom? And for what?
It’s an absolute damn shame that I would have to pay a fee to “opt out” of a system that serves no purpose whatsoever or to pay privacy on everyone of my domains to protect them from who…other nosey domainers.
November 14th, 2007 at 12:52 pm
I just don’t see what legitimate purposes this service provides. It is a complete intrusion into people’s affairs that they have no way to avoid or opt out of. All it does is provide a business’ competitors with free (I know you charge for this but the person who has domains doesn’t get compensated) access to all the intellectual property someone else has spent a lot of time and money in researching, testing and implementing somain buying strategies. Hard working publishers, marketers and domainers all lose because of Registrant Search. Please remove this feature.
November 14th, 2007 at 3:38 pm
@webquest
Regarding the harvesting of whois records: None of Jay’s services abuse or slam the registrars’ whois servers. Jay more or less performs whois queries on behalf of the users of domaintools, and then caches the results. Registrars don’t mind this, and jay has figured out/negotiated a way for this to happen.
What know that registrars DO mind is the automated, irresponsible harvesting of whois for purposes particularly related to marketing and spam. They mind this for a couple reasons – 1) like you said, if badly executed, these things can clog whois servers and 2) it pisses off their customers who hate being spammed. What Jay does has neither of these impacts … so the registrars largely don’t mind.
I agree with you, webquest, that if you slam a registrar’s port 43 without permission, you will suffer the consequences. In fact, you would not be able to do this anyway due to metering. What I’m saying is that if you are able to get whois records from a registrar without annoying them (I’m not going to spell out HOW, but it can be done, although with great difficulty) then the registrar will not NECESSARILY feel like coming after you AS LONG AS you don’t abuse the whois records for spam or marketing. This is my experience at least.
Also — registrars can and do bulk-sell their whois data to anyone they want. They also can and do whitelist people on their whois servers. All I’m saying is that the dubious legal language they tack on to their whois records is there so that they can attempt, at least, to preserve their options if they don’t happen to like what people are doing on their whois servers and records. But in my experience, they don’t necessarily dislike all attempts to re-use whois. Jay is clearly an example of this, but certainly not the only one.
November 14th, 2007 at 3:46 pm
Post 162 asks the difference between ownership of a domain and that of various physical properties and financial obligations, seeming to say that access to owner info about the former justifies unlimited access to owner info for the latter.
Firstly, all those different items listed in post 162 are not aggregated into one master report on an individual. The records are lawfuly administered by accountable authorities who must follow rules and are subject to grievance and review procedures.
A domain is a virtual property which may be intellectual property and have social and political applications. Many will make assumptions about the owner of a domain such as Freetibet or Enslavewallstreet, and the actual uses of those domains for real world websites will have consequences for the owner. Few houses or mortgages are listed with the title “Freetibet” or “Wagesforhousework”. The owner of the domain Freetibet may have a complicated relationship with the Chinese authorities. Most places sex with animals is illegal and people will make assumptions about the owner of Sexwithanimals domain, particularly if it emerges that the owner has a set of related domains.
As said, there has been a strong emphasis on here on domains solely as financial assets. Many domains are owned by speculators, but are there any figures as to what percentages of domains are owned by individuals, organisations and businesses? Often domains are owned by private individuals and organisations to publish their views on topics important to them, with no intention of earning, or of reselling the domain. Some of those domain users will feel their freedom of speech is threatened by aggregated reports on all their domains ever owned linked to their contact details. They may not want that information available to employers or other interest groups, and they had understood that public Whois records did not permit aggregation of the data.
Another important point is that an individual’s views or circumstances may change. Those who argue here that no one should have anything to hide must ask themselves this: would they refuse to appear as a witness in a criminal trial? Someone who has appeared as a witness may need to behave differently afterwards to protect themselves and their family. Unfortunately Domaintools ensures that they cannot make private their contact details because of any domains they have owned, even if they cancel or transfer the domain.
November 14th, 2007 at 7:42 pm
you made your first million yet?
We are currently only showing the oldest 1,000 whois records. There are 991 other records that will be displayed when the report has been ordered.
707 Domains Found – Order this report for $296.00
56 Domains Found – Order this report for $104.00
November 14th, 2007 at 10:26 pm
Wildhippy,
YOU SAID: “Jay more or less performs whois queries on behalf of the users of domaintools, and then caches the results. Registrars don’t mind this…”
Now you say they don’t mind, but above you said you don’t *think* they mind. Do you know for sure if they mind or not or are you going on what YOU think here?
YOU SAID: “so the registrars largely don’t mind.”
Above you said, “Do you think the large registrars of the world don’t know that Jay is doing what he does? I don’t think they mind.”
So again, you sometimes speak as if you know something but really it’s just your opinion on what YOU THINK the registrars mind.
YOU SAID: “What I’m saying is that if you are able to get whois records from a registrar without annoying them (I’m not going to spell out HOW, but it can be done, although with great difficulty) then the registrar will not NECESSARILY feel like coming after you AS LONG AS you don’t abuse the whois records for spam or marketing. This is my experience at least.”
1. Why can’t you “spell out how”? We are trying to be TRANSPARENT here, so let’s hear how. How do you gather data from the registrars without annoying them?
2. You are giving reasons why YOU don’t think a registrar minds but yet each registrar has TOS that states otherwise.
YOU SAID: “Also — registrars can and do bulk-sell their whois data to anyone they want.”
1. That doesn’t justify slamming registrars for their data.
2. Has any of the registrars I use sold you guys their data? I have thousands of domains showing up on DomainTools, so Im curious. If they didn’t sell it to you, how did you get it?
YOU SAID: “But in my experience, they don’t necessarily dislike all attempts to re-use whois. Jay is clearly an example of this, but certainly not the only one.”
Again, you state your opinion but not any facts. Sometimes you state things as facts but later you state them as opinions.
Can you name a few larger registrars who don’t mind the gathering and reselling of their data?
November 14th, 2007 at 10:31 pm
From post #166 Fanbloodytastic
“All it does is provide a business’ competitors with free (I know you charge for this but the person who has domains doesn’t get compensated) access to all the intellectual property someone else has spent a lot of time and money in researching, testing and implementing somain buying strategies. Hard working publishers, marketers and domainers all lose because of Registrant Search. Please remove this feature.”
Thanks for this post Fanbloodytastic. This is exactly the point I made in my earlier post. It’s all very well for other individuals to harp on about “shining a bright healing light into dark places”, or “I have nothing to hide”. I don’t have anything to hide either, but I’m really concerned that any business competitor can pay to get a complete list of my as-yet-undeveloped niche market domains.
This type of business spying isn’t an accidental side-effect of the use of RegistrantSearch, it’s the very first use outlined by DomainTools when promoting the use of this “service”. Taken from that website is the following:
———————————————————————-
What can I do with Registrant Search?
Business research can be done by searching for a company name. You will be able to see which internet properties that company owns, owned at one time, or which websites they may release soon.
———————————————————————-
Just because something may be (just about) legal, doesn’t make it ethical. This is clearly being promoted as an unethical tool, and should be taken down.
November 15th, 2007 at 4:33 am
webquest asks (at the end of comment 170):
“Can you name a few larger registrars who don’t mind the gathering and reselling of their data?”
to which I ask:
Does whois data BELONG to registrars? Isn’t the idea of maintaining such records a matter of PUBLIC record-keeping?
November 15th, 2007 at 10:22 am
@webquest
I’m happy to be transparent about my own affairs, but I’m a bit hesitant about giving out lots of details about someone else’s business (on their blog no less), so that’s probably why I’m hedging a bit on the particulars of how Jay does what he does.
Why not send Jay an email and see if he’d be willing to talk to you about the details of Domaintools’ inner workings … At this point, I don’t think it’s particularly my role to discuss that, except in general.
In any case, anyone familiar with how some of these services work knows that they operate with the open or tacet approval of some or all of the major registrars — I don’t think it’s necessary for me to go into any more detail than that. Jay might be willing to answer any more specific questions about how his service works.
One thing that I can say for sure is that domaintools does not slam registrars for data. As I said before, Jay performs lookups on behalf of the users of domaintools and caches the results. There are tens of thousands of lookups through domaintools each day. You do the math!
@ nmw
Regarding ownership of whois data, this was discussed above. The legal situation is somewhat complicated and murky, but here’s what I know: by their agreement with ICANN, registrars do have some limited form of ownership of the data. However, they are required by the same agreement to provide free (reasonably metered) access to the data to anyone for any purpose other than spam or marketing. It is clear to me, nmw, that the registrars probably to not have the right to restrict the use of whois data that has left their hands, except in the case of spam or marketing. However, by the same agreement, ONLY ICANN can enforce this right. In particular, a third party cannot seek to have this agreement enforced through the courts. (See the Verio/Registrar.com case of 2000/2004)
Quite frankly I think this sucks — if the data is supposed to be freely available for any use except spam and marketing, then it should be exactly that. No strings attached. Some of the re-use/packaging provisions that registrars put in the records are in direct contravention of their ICANN agreements, but there’s little you or I can do about it and ICANN doesn’t seem to care. That’s the way I see it anyway.
November 15th, 2007 at 12:05 pm
thanks, wildhippy!
ps: my “gut feeling” is that having this information freely available is crucial — otherwise I expect that fraud and/or similar questionable activity might be much more widespread; I feel much more secure that the information posted at a website (and/or linked to via a URL) is reliable if/when I know that there is an administrative contact who can be legally held accountable for the information provided at a URL / address (likewise, I would hardly expect that the New York Times would object to having their address being publicly available [for example, in order to correct typographical or similar errors]; indeed, my gut feeling is that the publishing industry has long since required such “accountability” — but that is actually just a “hunch”
November 15th, 2007 at 2:04 pm
I see you are disallowing archive.org
from keeping a copy of domaintools.com
cached with robots.txt and specifically using the tag;
User-agent: ia_archiver
Disallow: /
It’s nice to be able to opt-out of a “public records” database, isn’t it?
November 15th, 2007 at 2:38 pm
Considering the fact the majority of domains are owned by domainers, you have to ask yourself who are the registrars going to support?
You? I very much doubt it.
I have no issue with my information being available for all to see, what I do object is how that data can be manipulted. This amounts to having google index your hard drive for all to see.
No good can come of it.
November 15th, 2007 at 5:16 pm
per mTLD:
it is explicitly forbidden to extract, copy and/or use or re-utilise
in any form and by any means (electronically or not) the whole or a
quantitatively or qualitatively substantial part of the contents of the WHOIS database without prior and explicit permission by mTLD, nor in any attempt hereof, or to apply automated, electronic processes to mTLD (or its systems).
You agree that any reproduction and/or transmission of data for commercial purposes will always be considered as the extraction of a substantial part of the content of the WHOIS database. By submitting the query you agree to abide by this policy
per VeriSign:
The compilation, repackaging, dissemination or other use of this Data is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of VeriSign. You agree not to use electronic processes that are automated and high-volume to access or query the Whois database except as reasonably necessary to register domain names or modify existing registrations.
So what part of this do you not understand?
You, Jay, need opinions? In most courts of law in nearly every country they are not called opinions. They are referred to as rulings, judgments, and findings.
You want to play games? Let’s play games. You laid the field and set the stage, now let’s change the rules…
>>
This is serious business.
PLEASE READ!
If you have not been following this thread, here it is in a nutshell. Jay Westerwal is selling information on his domain tools site that will allow anyone to look at ALL OF YOUR DOMAINS. Like it or not, for a fee they can find the status, registrar, etc. for you and all or your domains. The majority of respondents want this tool removed but Jay is enjoying the limelight.
It is a shame to think that you would need privacy protection to protect yourself from other domainers. But this facilitates theft and spamming and is illegal in the US to do this and appears to be illegal in the UK and most other countries.
Until he comes to his senses (which he won’t…he appears to be loving the attention) there is a way to make his list totally worthless.
CHANGE ALL OF YOUR CONTACT INFORMATION TO READ:
DOMAIN FOR SALE
There are currently 405,000 domains registered this way and his list (which he sells) will only do 10,000.
November 16th, 2007 at 12:18 am
nmw,
YOU SAID: “Does whois data BELONG to registrars? Isn’t the idea of maintaining such records a matter of PUBLIC record-keeping?”
Data may not technically belong to them but when you are hitting their servers for this data and/or gathering more than what they allow, and then reselling and reusing it you are violating their TOS.
November 16th, 2007 at 12:56 am
Wildhippy,
YOU SAID: “As I said before, Jay performs lookups on behalf of the users of domaintools and caches the results. There are tens of thousands of lookups through domaintools each day. You do the math!”
So if thats the case then every domain I own at some point has been looked up at Domaintools in order for it to return almost the exact amount of domains I own when I search for my company name right? That seems hard to believe.
I own several thousands by the way…so thats a lot of names that had to be looked up and cached. I own some pretty sucky ones too…hard to imagine they were looked up at some point here at Domaintools.
YOU SAID: “It is clear to me, nmw, that the registrars probably do not have the right to restrict the use of whois data that has left their hands, except in the case of spam or marketing.”
Isn’t offering and promoting a tool that returns results of every domain owned by a person, packaging it, and reselling it, marketing?
I mean, its not a free service…and it has been offered to those who may need or want this service…sounds like marketing to me.
BTW, I have asked 2 registrars I use if they are for or against the list of every domain I have registered with them, which comes by mining the whois, being listed as for sale. They both said they are against it.
They might not have done anything about it (yet) but the lack of enforcement doesn’t mean they don’t mind.
YOU SAID: “Why not send Jay an email and see if he’d be willing to talk to you about the details of Domaintools’ inner workings”
Why email? Lets be transparent. He can discuss this here.
From this post: http://blog.domaintools.com/2007/11/transparency-in-the-domain-industry/
I see it say….”If you have nothing to hide, then transparency is a good thing.”
As well as, “Hiding the details or obscuring facts is not good for the industry in general.”
So Jay, how do you gather data from all these registrars? Do you do it within their TOS’s?
Have you ever violated a registrars TOS?
I may be totally off base here, if so, answer the questions and let me know.
November 16th, 2007 at 7:14 am
I’m not a domainer, I’m using domaintools great services to protect the trademarks & brands of the company I’m working for.
And that’s why registrant search could be an huge help.
Jay, I can give you some case illustrating my needs
ps : does registrant search still works ?
November 16th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
Jay.
STOP USING MY NAME FOR SALES PROMOTION PURPOSES !!!!
Yes I use my real name for registration purposes.
Every lookup through your whois page gives the following:
“xxxxxxxxx” owns about xxx other domains New!
This line is YOURS, not part of the WHOIS data.
It is a blatent and illegal usage of my name (and all others)
to sell your new money-making utility.
I smell a class-action coming Jay.
STOP THIS NOW !!!
November 16th, 2007 at 12:26 pm
Whois provides those informations. Registrant search just add a really usefull functionality, like reverse phone number serach
If someone doesn’t want to be known as registrant, he can use one of the privacy services available.
Registrant search is helpfull fighting against cyber squatters and domain taster
Please keep it
November 16th, 2007 at 1:01 pm
I agree that the tool is useful. Just because something can be abused doesn’t mean it should be extinguished. Cybersquatters abuse the domain registration system by intentionally and purposefully registering other people’s marks, usually typos. Could we end domaining because some people abuse the registration process? I also agree that legitimate domainers may ultimately do themselves a dis-service hiding behind privacy arguments. Domaining is a legitimate enterprise being brought down by those on the fringe. Beating the privacy drum merely makes all domainer’s appear illegitimate.
I can search public databases to identify most tangible assets of value, a persons houses, real property, cars, equipment, etc. Does this create theft and blackmail risk? Hardly. Why should domain names be any different?
If you want to improve privacy, set up an LLC, put your domain names there, transfer domains into the LLC and live with the historical data.
November 16th, 2007 at 2:01 pm
Of course, you can always go to whitepages.com
or a variety of other databases to find someone’s home address, phone number, assets, etc. All these hysterical responses about having the address become public are without merit. The internet made that happen, not domain tools.
So the problem isn’t that you can locate someone’s contact info. That is a ridiculous argument.
The real problem from those wanting the tool removed (with completley incorrect arguemnts about selling ‘private’ data) is that you can associate a person as a domain registrant, or list of domains. That is the beginning and end of this issue.
So why don’t so many domainers want to be identified as registrant? As a lawyer, I find myself defending the domainer community by arguing that it is only a few domainers who purposefully cybersquat which tarnish the image of the otherwise legitmate group. This thread has given me serious pause.
I don’t buy the privacy, address or ‘monetization’ of data arguments. “The lady doth protest too much.” The extreme nature of the responses makes me, an insider, wonder if more domainers engage in cybersquatting than I thought. I wonder what a lay person would think?
November 16th, 2007 at 2:54 pm
The problem of treating domains as analogous to other assets was addressed in post 168.
The questions posed here about how the data is obtained have not been answered, nor has the question about whether Domaintools accepts registrars TOS in providing data. Receiving data promising to observe the conditions attached to it and then breaking the promise does not inspire confidence in anyone’s business practices.
Now here is a key question.
Is Domaintools signed up to the EU/US Safeharbour protocol for data transfer? Not according to the Domaintools site, so perhaps Domaintools are actually not authorised to receive data from the EU, as it comes subject to typical EU Data Protection restrictions.
http://www.export.gov/safeharbor/SH_Overview.asp
November 16th, 2007 at 11:14 pm
QUOTE “The lady doth protest too much.” The extreme nature of the responses makes me, an insider, wonder if more domainers engage in cybersquatting than I thought. I wonder what a lay person would think? ENDQUOTE
Very interesting observations, enrico1999.
1. The “problems” you describe probably ARE much bigger and/or widespread than you think — see e.g.
http://battellemedia.com/archives/004084.php
(then again, “the establishment” is usually AGAINST reform — regardless of which reform
2. It is quite well known that such “feedback” is predominantly negative — people who are happy with something rarely take the time to say so.
November 19th, 2007 at 6:54 am
“michael91806 Says:
November 12th, 2007 at 7:09 am
Dear happydomainers,
To be very honest, I don’t care what laws you have in Europe as I never intend to be governed by them. What you have in Europe in not privacy laws but government monopolies on information. You can’t walk down a street in London without your every movement and facial expression being recorded by the state. Some privacy!
We Yanks designed the ARPANet to survive WWIII and the Internet will survive European lawyers and bureaucrats. So bring them on!
Mike
”
You’ve completely missed the point – EU lawyers a merely implementing the free trade requirments that you Americans impose on everyone else but ignore yourself.
IF YOU DO NOT TELL YOUR CUSTOMERS WHO YOU ARE YOU ARE NOT ENGAGED IN FREE TRADE
November 19th, 2007 at 3:29 pm
For a start, the tool is either broken or misnamed. It is called “REGISTRANT” search. I enter my business domain name – it says that my business name is the Registrant for 34 domains. Wrong! The correct answer is 3. However the (blurred out) list is looking pretty much a close match for the list of domains where my business name is the TECHNICAL contact.
I enter one of my customers’ domains. This time registrant search uses the name of the REGISTRAR – and reports a number that is at least an order of magnitude wrong.
Now, Whois Privacy: It doesn’t matter what ICANN decides to do about making WHOIS more private, because most domains I work with are .nz – and the NZ Domain Name Commissioner rates the need for a public record of ownership as overriding the country’s privacy laws. I can leave the number off my street address, but since I have to include an phone number, that’s still easy to trace, and if I use false information I put my rights to the domain in jeopardy.
So I vote take it down, and if you don’t take it down, fix it.
November 21st, 2007 at 7:48 pm
I have a picture in my head of Jay with the devil on one shoulder and angel on the other, each wispering to him what he should do.
At times like these I think of the sage advice I’ve been given over the years. Here are a few relevent quotes.
“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” Edmund Burke
“Beware the dark side” Yoda
“Show me your friends and I’ll show you your future” Mom
Darkening the light or lighting the dark? What’s it gonna be?
November 25th, 2007 at 10:46 pm
Jay honestly a criminal will always find a way if its profitable enough i think if you are going to offer the service Jay dont give the how many are owned before asked too many people will use this info without finding out the details,and i also agree could put individuals and families at risk.I have been threatened in several jobs over the years for just doing my job and being nice as i could in the process but some people do not take results that are not what they desire well which is why i use Privacy.If
you are in a legal matter you are required to provide accurate info so Privacy does not protect you in that area nor should it.I would keep it as an option but shield it and offer levels make people pay for the free info you give now to make a paper trail against those that would exploit the info possibly even put terms of use on it and make those that use it liable for how they use it if that is possible and also make it part of the service if you are the owner in question thet you get a heads up warning that you were inquired about and at what level and how often but dont say who to protect them but at least they could get a heads up people are watching.Its
been a long day and i hope this makes sense to all those concerned.
December 2nd, 2007 at 10:26 am
So Jay,
Is it up or down with the tool?
January 27th, 2008 at 6:33 pm
I’m sure all the major search engines (Yahoo, AltaVista, Google, MSN, etc.) got the same heat for their search tool. We all know that those search results can be abused as well. So did they take it down?
No.
I think the negative reaction everyone is having is normal when something revolutionary comes out that threatens their long running privacy advantage. It is the same reaction I had over 10 years ago when I realized how well search engines work to uncover my privacy.
So how is DomainTools anything different than a “Google for Domains”?
For that reason, it should stay up.
April 29th, 2008 at 11:08 am
DomainTools adds the record to their DB when the 1st search is performed, so if the service goes on I will recommend everybody NOT to use DomainTools, since they will store the information.
And I think many other people will start telling the same as well…
June 16th, 2008 at 2:18 am
there is a law of nature – that the lowest common denominator will be achieved, by someone who regards money as more important than anything else. this invention (with historical who-is) comes under the same precedent as the company that sent the first mass spam, in the 90s. innovative, yes. also very sad indeed.
March 9th, 2009 at 9:14 pm
Jay
I’ve recently found my site information published on your crooked website. Who do you and your company think they are? This is an abhorrent invasion of privacy. I am a musician, but I don’t make enough money to subside on that just yet, so I would like to keep that private from employers who will always google my first and last name to check up on me. Now, after I did a thorough job of cleaning up that search, I’ve found domaintools has ruined it for me. I’m out of a job since my company went out of business 6 months ago, and I suspect that YOUR WEBSITE is only making things worse for me. Good job, you truly are SCUM
April 14th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
It’s a useful tool, but it’s only “right” if you offer an opt-out. If you don’t it’s very very very wrong. People feel abused by you and your service. Allow a choice.