Righthaven.com Taken Down for Invalid Whois

Eh, when the domain name system was set up, it was designed with businesses and academics in mind. People who don't expect or want to be anonymous. The idea was that individuals would get services through a provider's domain, so the whole system assumes less privacy than one would expect out of a product one uses to run one's own email.

Really, I would personally be happy to give my customers a discount if they were willing to post contact info publicly. I mean, I wouldn't force the issue, because I know a lot of my customers really do want privacy, but my costs for hosting someone who says "hey, this is who I am, send abuse complaints to me" through rwhois on the IP or the like, and who handles those complaints without my help are lower than my costs otherwise.

I mean, I certainly understand and think it's okay that some people want to be anonymous, but you need to understand that you put yourself in a more expensive group by wanting that anonymity.

Now, is that 5 pounds per customer worth of 'more expensive' for a domain registrar? probably not. Abuse expenses are a little like insurance... 99% of your customers won't get any complaints, or the complaints they get will be resolved painlessly, but a few will be quite painful and eat a lot of time and money. (unless you take the 'kick off everyone who complains' approach.)

I haven't implemented such a 'discount for using your own realname and your own abuse contact' yet, in part because I'm afraid customers will see it as anti-privacy, so I'm still feeling out the idea, I'm just saying, there is an economic justification for it.

and can we make a safe one that doesn't cost more than a few cents per name per year?

/thread