Private Whois
 

I noticed that the rules for LOR's regular submitters don't allow for private whois, how common is this?

I have private whois on my main domain as I really don't want anyone at my day job to know what I'm doing on my own time, and more importantly they'd probably fire me if they found out I had porn sites. They're very conservative asswipes, but they pay well. You do what you gotta do to pay the bills... |sad|

Anyway, am I going to have problems getting sites listed with a private whois?

Thanks!

Yes, you will. It is a price you are going to pay in this business. I am in the same boat, too. I follow all the laws, I never combine my two environments, and give them no reason to fire me. Fortunately my name is somewhat common, so I can always try to deny it is me. (Yeah, works until they see the address... )

What I look at is my private life is just that. There is no cross mention of what I do. I am not out chasing after men or getting arrested. I run a home-based marketing business, plain and simple. I have enough non-adult domains that get updated to offer them a taste if they really press me.

I have had porn sites and a top level domain for about 8 years now -- on several different jobs. Some have found out and just said as long as I behave I am fine. It really isn't that bad -- about like having tattoos, I guess.

Hi Guys, the private whois is fine with me if you'd like to submit to my lists.

i use some private whois on domains i dont use it for submitting to linksites and all, private whois isnt a problem...as long you dont use the domain for submitting to linksites.

Hmm... not sure yet how I'm going to get around this problem. Maybe I could register a domain in my wife's maiden name.

Can anyone shed some light as to why there's an issue with having a private whois?

Even if the whois were public, the contact info could be bogus.

you know.. it is funny. I have not lost any sleep over having the private whois removed. It will save me money in the long run. If I am going to run a risk over being fired for something done completely within the law, then there had better be a line ahead of me for those who come into work drunk, high, or both. I do not know of anywhere that it is legal to drive under the influence, yet I have coworkers who do it daily.

Most outside this industry don't know enough or care enough to go digging. You pretty much have to know the domain is there in most cases to find the owners -- especially for the casual users. Is it worth the stress over it? Heck no. Quietly register it.. work with it on your personal time and ignore it while you are on the boss' dime. As to the info being bogus... get caught and it is grounds for blacklisting. You can thank all the spammers and such for this, btw.

The only time I came close to crossing the boundary on this current job -- we had an issue with employees using company equipment to go looking at porn. Silly fools.. if they had asked, I would have given them links to safe stuff.. but nooooo. They had to go grab the crappy stuff that puts virus' and spyware and other garbage on the computers. Almost killed 2 computers -- repair bill came to over $500 between them. I did have to give the Field Operations Director a fast lesson in how to use parental controls.. and made sure I stumbled when asked to provide a URL. Yeah, right.. me.. a 10 year vet of this business. I could not think of a single URL except the old whitehouse.com one - and that is no longer a porn site. Like Ms. Straight-and-narrow-nose-to-the-grindstone Child Support worker would know what a porn site is ... right..

Point is.. the only person this is going to impact is you. It is no more relevant to the boss than the color or persuasion of your underwear. As long as you are breaking no rules or laws, it is also none of his danged business.

I am fine with a private whois as long as the owner does not run any scams.

There are various reasons why people use a private whois as many countries do not allow porn to be published on the internet. Some countries crack down on whois info and blacklist adult webmasters or people who have voiced concerns over political topics such as human rights on websites, etc.

Two years back the government of a Latin American country approached me about an escort directory I own. They were offended that I listed prostitution related sites from their country and asked me to remove them. I denied their request. They said they would try to investigate my identity and blacklist me.

I dont care for private whois. If i had a new submitter that used a private whois i would reject it. But If the person was a respected member of this board, ;) or if i knew them well, There would be no problem listing a private whois.

Thanks all for the advice/info.

I've got a few sites built and ready to submit, but I need to think this over a bit before deciding how to proceed.

Pagan, you're right, I doubt anyone at my office has the knowledge or desire to figure out whois info.

Some of mine are private - as that was free with the domain at the time. Not paying for that though.

Personally I don't care if it is public or private - as long as your sites are nice, virus free and stay that way.

Even though I had been submitting to pretty much the same pool of sites for over 8 years, when I went private on the whois, I started getting rejects. Some don't care, others do. That was when I started thinking -- why do I need to hide? I have never cheated, spammed, removed a link, or redirected a site, and I don't have any intentions of doing so. I like my clean porn.

If it is not legal to do a porn site from your local county/state/country, then you are breaking the local laws. Here in the rural areas of Texas, we don't have adult stores, and alcohol is restricted. My local cops do know what I do, and have absolutely no issue with it because I am not breaking any laws at all. Who do you think they turned to when they wanted to build their own website? (ah, small town life!) Maybe I don't worry as much because I live in the US and my adult domain is hosted in Canada!

Truthfully - it is a lot of worry over nothing.

if your a known submitter of mine or other friends LL then ok

new submitters not known then deleted

... some countries have ancient laws and morals. Why deny those people the rights of freedom of speech and expressions? It's like telling the people in Tibet or Myanmar not to fight for their human rights because demonstrating is against local laws.

I'm ok with a private whois

Thanks for all the advice guys.

After thinking it over, I came up with a solution that I'm comfortable with:

1) I went to the post office and got a p.o. box for my address.

2) For registrant info, I changed my first name to my middle name.

The info is still valid and real, but it also gives me plausible deniability. Honestly I doubt anyone will ever look it up, but you never know...

faxxaff... not every country recognizes these "freedoms" that we Americans take for granted. I also disagree with the restrictions especially in a universe that has no borders. Until local laws are changed, I cannot encourage someone to endanger themselves or their families over a few lousy dollars. Can you?

That's why I recommend the use of private whois :-)

I guess times change. I remember coming here with the proxies on my domain.

Rejected everywhere and it sucked.

Thats all bullshit
I bet 99,9% people that are not in the biz dont't even know what whois is, or how to check it. And even if they knew how the hell would they check trizilions of adult biz domains? I've never heard of anyone getting fired, victimized or whatever |bullshit|

Unfortunately, there are a couple of people that have been victims of real whois info. For example a guy named Bruce. He runs a site about erotic travel. A couple of years back he visited Thailand and he took photos of bars and massage parlors in Phuket to publish them on his website. As a result he got blacklisted from entering Thailand.

There has been a war raging between several competing porn producers and webmasters in Asia over the past years with several of them being jailed and fined for running websites.

Or look at this Filipino webmaster who got arrested for running a porn board http://pinoyambisyoso.com/blogs/boyb...bastos-nga-ba/ He got busted because he did not have a private whois.

Basically, every competitor or "good" friend may set you up if they want to get you into trouble or have you fired, divorced or whatsoever. Sometimes it is just enough to spread the word about your domains to ruin one's reputation inside a conservative community.

That's not true at all. He was arrested because he was running a site that local authorities deemed as:
If someone chooses to prostitute themselves, open an adult video store, or run a porn site in a location where it is clearly illegal, it's no one's fault but their own. Whether or not we agree those laws HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH IT.

Also there is nothing analogous about running a porn business and fighting for freedom in Tibet and Myanmar as you asserted earlier. It's an insult to those people to compare their struggles with that of some poor bastard who wants to use private WHOIS.

Ohhh please...
"Sen. Loren Legarda said “the website boybastos.com provides Internet users, including minors, free and unrestricted access to the largest online accumulation of “extremely” hardcore pornographic materials of Filipino women and girls."

And you think its wrong he got arrested?? |crazy|

Most adult sites are available to minors. There is no working age verification system in place. If you run adult sites, I am sure your's can be accessed by minors, too! So what makes our sites different to his? I have no way of telling minors not to look at my sites and I am sure you don't have a way of blocking minors from watching porn on your sites.

The forum had a registration form in place, where users had to confirm to be of legal age.

I want to bring up very important point. The purpose of private WHOIS is NOT to protect the identity of someone running an illegal site.

Even if that Filipino webmaster had used private WHOIS, authorities would have still been able get his real information from his host or by contacting his domain registrar.

I don't think the guy did anything illegal in the jurisdiction of his host or registrar. He ran a forum, where people would post images and stories. Probably, a large part of the images were stolen off of other sites as on many other porn boards, but that was certainly not the point of the senator. It was a politically motivated action.

But I agree, of course it should not be used for anything illegal. I do know that private registrars do hand out info in case of fraud, copyright and trademark issues and when they see a danger of being involved in legal claims.

Which is it then? In your opinion, is it ok for someone to mask their identity if they live a country where porn is illegal?

When Pagan said, "Until local laws are changed, I cannot encourage someone to endanger themselves or their families over a few lousy dollars." You replied with, "That's why I recommend the use of private whois"

You have me confused. ;)

I think freedom of speech is an universal right that belongs to each and every human on this planet. In some countries this is a very highly regarded value, while in others human rights - or individual rights in general - are worth much less.

This is a very unfortunate situation, but I think people who have to fear for their lives, freedom or personal belongings should use a private whois. As long as they conduct legal sites under the law of the registrar and where they are hosted they should not be put in danger as they just do the same thing as other Americans, Canadians or Brits or other free societies.

I think that's pretty easy to understand. Why would an American want to tell a Russian not to run a porn site because porn is illegal in Russia while the American is doing the same thing ....

No its not. Its like you were saying.. hey, lets sell drugs.. its allowed in hollands so we all should be able to do it anywhere in the world... just sell it online using private or fake whois info so they cant jail us and we're cool

I think not

The fact that porn is illegal in Russia is the burden of the Russian people, not me. I could not care less. As we say here, it's no skin off my ass. The policy of open and honest WHOIS has nothing to do with them. It's not a policy based on screwing Russian submitters. It's about business. It's about honesty. It's about tracking down and banning those who screw you or your surfers. If this policy blocks a few submitters from submitting, so be it. I have submitters crawling out of my ass.

George Carlin -Rights and Privileges

There really is no such thing as freedom of speech. There are no universal rights. You can only have what you are willing to fight for. We Americans lose "rights" every time George W gets a hair up his ass. So they musn't be "rights" after all, or else we couldn't lose them. It's pretty obvious that we, as a people, are unwilling to fight for them. So it's not callousness that allows me to say that I don't care about porn in Russia. I just don't care.

If he was a owner or moderator , he didn't do he's work

for what its worth, I only put my initials in my whois listing and I've never been rejected for whois issues.

Uh.... how many people fought and died for that right for you, as an American? Did you even do any military service? As a veteran myself, I am rather disturbed by this. The precious freedoms you enjoy here are because someone cared enough to lay down everything they believed in for something universal.

And if they use those sites to allow illegal activities such as CP or open prostitution? The registrar has little to do with your site's legality. You have to look at the laws where you live as well as the rules of your host. My adult domains are hosted in Canada where I feel I have a bit more freedom than I would as an American. My non-adult domains are hosted in Colorado Springs by a very strict host. He is strict enough that I don't have any crossovers. I did have one gameserver that was very adult in nature that is currently offline until I find a new home for it. Why? My host here in the states has a firm rule, and I respect the rules of his server. Does it curtail my freedom of speech? A little.

Because you can go to jail, be publically humiliated, lose your family, your hard-earned possessions, be blacklisted in so many ways. Have you seen Russian jails? Do you want to have anyone even risk being in one for an hour? I sure would not. Maybe it is my stubborn Finnish nature to respect the laws and learn to live within them. And it is odd - I am more comfortable with the public whois than I was hiding it behind a privacy block. It just feels cleaner.

I won't fight with you anymore. You want to deny people living in other countries the same rights that you enjoy in the comfort of your own home. I accept your opinions, but I think it is totally wrong to put people with a private whois in the same bag with drug dealers and CP. I grew up under a communist regime so I know how terrible it is to be without rights.

I am happy there are Russian webmasters that produce great sites and superb content, I am happy there are guys who shoot porn in Mexico, Colombia, Cuba, China, India and other countries. I am happy there are Filipino and Indian outsourcing companies working in adult. If they need to protect their privacy with private whois or by setting up offshore companies then I find this legit as long as they respect the guidelines of our industry. Amen.