illegal registration info ?

[vance]

Hello,

I was looking up the WHOIS info on a site which hosts a forum for the town I live in(cookevilletalks.com). The registration information is obviously fictional. I was just wondering - is this legal? Does it violate ICANN regulations?

Thanks for the help. Here's the whois info for the site :


Registrant:
INDIVIDUAL
669 AIRWOLF LANE
N/A
CHEYENNE MOUNTAIN, AZ 45687
US

Domain name: COOKEVILLETALKS.COM

Administrative Contact:
VINCENT, J. M VINCENT121_JM@HOTMAIL.COM
669 AIRWOLF LANE
N/A
CHEYENNE MOUNTAIN, AZ 45687
US
1-800-555-1212
Technical Contact:
VINCENT, J. M VINCENT121_JM@HOTMAIL.COM
669 AIRWOLF LANE
N/A
CHEYENNE MOUNTAIN, AZ 45687
US
1-800-555-1212

[Andrew]

Hmmmm,

Well theres nothing wrong with annonymous registration, usually just costs extra.

Fake info to avoid annonymous reg fees......

Probably doesnt violate ICAAN (though I may be wrong) - initial thoughts are that hes guilty of some sort of minor fraud to the registrar.

[Adam]

If caught; and the registrar decides so they can charge him a fine as the registrar if caught to be knowingly allowing him to use fictional info could be charged a whole lot of money. In most cases the registrar will at first warn you; or cancel the domain.

That's all i can remember from a couple years back when i was going for registry access via VS-GRS.

[markblair]

If you enter anonymous contact information for your WHOIS records, you take the chance of not only violating ICANN policy but losing the domain name. Yes, most registrars will contact you ahead of time and tell you to update the information. But just having false information in there is enough to lose the domain name. I know registrars like Dotster offer some type of anonymous services but that's usually just the e-mail address. Not the entire contact information.

[markblair]

Just to clarify further, since I wanted to make sure myself if this has changed. On Dotster's site there is a support FAQ page. When searching on WHOIS information, here's one question/answer they posted:

Question
Does my contact information have to be visible in the WhoIs?

Answer
Please note that it is against the rules of ICANN to conceal the contact information for a domain registration. If we can not reach you in the future, you will run the risk of losing ownership of your domain.

Also, I just found this too... Visit ICANN at http://www.icann.org/registrars/wdrp.htm and look at the bottom of the page for this text:

If any of the information above is inaccurate, you must correct it by visiting our website. (If your review indicates that all of the information above is accurate, you do not need to take any action.) Please remember that under the terms of your registration agreement, the provision of false Whois information can be grounds for cancellation of your domain name registration.

Hope this information helps... :)

[Chicken]

Yes, and you can report it to ICANN, which will probably do something about it eventually, unlike anything else they do. You can also report it to the registrar, though I don't know what they'll really do as they can't "cancel" your domain (in terms of them having already paid fees to verisign). ICANN has sent pointless letters to NetSol about domains which had bogus information. As I said though, other than claiming the domain in their own name, I'm not sure what options are available to registrars for those that refuse to comply. There just aren't the resources to track down all the people who have bogus whois info, and there seems to be very little motivation for the registrar, and fewer consequences for the registrar by ICANN (the issue I was thinking of had been going on for years).

[Adam]

Certain registrars can cancel domains chicken...require special permissions from the global registry solutions division of verisign however.

[Felxi]

looking into the matter it seems that even companys who promote private whois, they stil have to be able to get in contact with!

GoDaddy Example (https://www.domainsbyproxy.com/popup/whoisexample.aspx)


point is, if this site is just bugging you because you dont like the owner or what have you, dont bother, if there sellings a service to customers, or trading in anyways, then get in contact with ICANN, simple if a fruad or scam was brought to its attention then the owner of the site would be in serious risk for going to jail for false informatiom, and IF you needed to sue the company, you couldnt,

personaly i thought domain companys check out the details, because it takes 24hr's to get a domain active, ok these companys use scripts to do the stuff, but even there main domain holder stil has to process this imformation, is this an error, or a scam about to be unleashed?!