Privacy Off .CA Domains (1.Viewing)

KarimMontreal

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Hello All

How do we turn Privacy Off on .CA domains? Same question on .CO.UK domains?

The Goal here is to enable whomever running a WHOIS query to find contact of the domain's owner.

Thanks in advance

Karim
 
Welcome to DN.ca Karim.

I believe it generally depends on the registrar. Some make it easy to turn privacy off with a single click, whereas others don't give you the option (like GoDaddy, for example). It's possible you could accomplish it by contacting support but I never tried before.

Keep in mind that when registering a .CA you have to choose whether you (ie the registrant) are buying the domain as an individual or a corporation. Individuals are automatically given whois privacy whereas corporations have their whois info public.

Below is further info you may find helpful, from CIRA's website. It seems to confirm you can contact your registrar to change the settings:

WHOIS Information

As part of the administration of the .CA Registry, CIRA operates an electronic look-up service called "WHOIS". WHOIS is designed to provide limited information concerning Domain Names.

WHOIS has built-in privacy protection options, which can be used to limit the personal information available through the WHOIS system. For Registrants who are individuals (e.g. as opposed to organizations), the privacy protection options are turned on by default, and only limited personal information is available to third parties when they search the WHOIS system for a Domain Name that you have registered. If you turn your privacy protection option off, more of your personal information will be available through the WHOIS system. Your privacy protections can be changed by contacting your Registrar.

....

If you are a non-individual Registrant, the information that will be made available through the WHOIS system will be the same as an individual Registrant with their privacy protection turned OFF. Non-individual Registrants may request to CIRA, in writing, that the information described above not be disclosed to the public via the WHOIS. In such a written request, the non-individual Registrant must certify that it has a legitimate need to protect the privacy of its information, which need is greater than that of other CIRA Registrants who are not individuals, because the nature of that Registrant’s operations or activities is such that disclosure of its information via the WHOIS would be likely to cause harm to individuals or to that Registrant.

CIRA retains the discretion to determine in any case whether a non-individual Registrant meets the criteria and will be permitted to opt out of standard disclosure of information in the WHOIS. If CIRA accedes to the request, the non-individual Registrant’s WHOIS information will only be disclosed thereafter in accordance with the terms for disclosure applicable to individual Registrants.

https://www.cira.ca/policy/corporate/cira-privacy-policy
 
[notify]KarimMontreal[/notify]

You're probably already aware but there's also CIRA's " Message Delivery Form" people can use to contact you. I never cared too much about making my whois info public because people can always reach me this way if they really wanted to. Plus having your whois info public will most likely result in you getting piles of spam/junk mail.

https://www.cira.ca/ca-domains/contact-a-domain-holder
 
Esdiel said:
@KarimMontreal

You're probably already aware but there's also CIRA's " Message Delivery Form" people can use to contact you. I never cared too much about making my whois info public because people can always reach me this way if they really wanted to. Plus having your whois info public will most likely result in you getting piles of spam/junk mail.

https://www.cira.ca/ca-domains/contact-a-domain-holder


Thanks a lot for writing me back

Their must be a way to turn off the privacy on .CA domain
 
I personally like privacy on with my domains. I believe that I do have a few with no privacy.

In the last 5 years, I have had only 1 inquiry for one of my domains via Whois lookup. In my opinion, as long as you have a contact page up, a potential buyer will find a way to reach you. I like my privacy private. :) But to each their own.
 
Actually, sometimes I'm surprised that people will contact me through whois rather than my contact page on the domain itself. Somtimes they'll do both.

Almost _never_ will I get contacted through the CIRA contact form. Only an experienced domainer would even know that exists, good luck having an end-user ever find that form!

If you're in the business of selling, then I agree, you want to give any potential buyer any and every way possible to contact you. Furthermore, if some lawyer thinks they have a claim on my domain name, I want them to know I'm not hiding and that they can contact me easily, before they start off with a CDRP. Even if they have no chance of winning, I'm forced to either pay a lawyer or put significant amount of my own time defending that kind of stuff, so I prefer not to go there unless I have to. That being said, if you always have a contact link/form, then needing whois being public is less of an issue. If you're _relying_ on whois to be your contact info, then you're making it impossible to contact you for a vast majority of the uninformed public. A contact form is definitely the first priority of you're a seller.

The main downside I see to having your whois public is your competition - other domainers. I've found that there are a few people who will stalk your every move and not having privacy makes it easy for them to track what domains you're buying/selling/etc. Some of those people are probably reading this right now, so you know who you are :)

I'm not saying I blame them, nor would I say I don't keep track of stuff like that myself. Information and knowledge is power, and it can be used against you too. So consider that. That's more of a function of how paranoid you are though, and how big of a target you are. Most domainers probably shouldn't care too much about that. People with large portfolios who are very active buying & selling, they're the ones being watched closely.
 
Personally I wish there wasn't whois privacy at all. Then its a fair playing field. And the whole concept of spam concerns are bogus. I have thousands of domains and don't have a spam problem. In fact, I have the opposite problem, overly aggressive spam filters blocking business emails that are absolutely positively not spam... The vast majority of spam comes more from the user's careless use of their email address by subscribing to unscrupulous businesses who sell/share their data, not whois harvesting.
 
rlm said:
Actually, sometimes I'm surprised that people will contact me through whois rather than my contact page on the domain itself. Somtimes they'll do both.

Almost _never_ will I get contacted through the CIRA contact form. Only an experienced domainer would even know that exists, good luck having an end-user ever find that form!

If you're in the business of selling, then I agree, you want to give any potential buyer any and every way possible to contact you. Furthermore, if some lawyer thinks they have a claim on my domain name, I want them to know I'm not hiding and that they can contact me easily, before they start off with a CDRP. Even if they have no chance of winning, I'm forced to either pay a lawyer or put significant amount of my own time defending that kind of stuff, so I prefer not to go there unless I have to. That being said, if you always have a contact link/form, then needing whois being public is less of an issue. If you're _relying_ on whois to be your contact info, then you're making it impossible to contact you for a vast majority of the uninformed public. A contact form is definitely the first priority of you're a seller.

The main downside I see to having your whois public is your competition - other domainers. I've found that there are a few people who will stalk your every move and not having privacy makes it easy for them to track what domains you're buying/selling/etc. Some of those people are probably reading this right now, so you know who you are :)

I'm not saying I blame them, nor would I say I don't keep track of stuff like that myself. Information and knowledge is power, and it can be used against you too. So consider that. That's more of a function of how paranoid you are though, and how big of a target you are. Most domainers probably shouldn't care too much about that. People with large portfolios who are very active buying & selling, they're the ones being watched closely.

Thank you RLM

Could you please share how were you able to disable Privacy on your .CA Domains?
 
With godaddy you have to call support for them to do it. Once turned off I think it carries to your next registrations.

I am with them and some domains are private and some not depending on where they came from.

So ask support to turn off privacy and remove it from all current domains.
 
MapleDots said:
With godaddy you have to call support for them to do it. Once turned off I think it carries to your next registrations.

I am with them and some domains are private and some not depending on where they came from.

So ask support to turn off privacy and remove it from all current domains.

Thank you MapleDots

I've asked thru their Chat Support, more than once , and their answer it was that they can't turn off privacy for my CA & CO.UK domains. The tool allow to turn Off privacy on top TLD domains (COM, NET, ORG, INFO...etc)
 
KarimMontreal said:
Thank you MapleDots

I've asked thru their Chat Support, more than once , and their answer it was that they can't turn off privacy for my CA & CO.UK domains. The tool allow to turn Off privacy on top TLD domains (COM, NET, ORG, INFO...etc)

You will most certainly have to call-in and speak with someone. Godaddy's chat support is pretty much useless most of the time and calling in is way better. Please let us know what you learn and if you're able to get it done!
 
Well I have some at godaddy with privacy and some without so there has to be a setting.

Maybe it is in the Cira account setting [notify]FM[/notify] might be able to help with that.
 
MapleDots said:
Well I have some at godaddy with privacy and some without so there has to be a setting.

Maybe it is in the Cira account setting [notify]FM[/notify] might be able to help with that.

I'm not sure where it would reside, sorry. By default .CA domains registered to individuals are private, but it is a setting that you should be able to change.

Maybe they lumped it into their general privacy settings:
https://ca.godaddy.com/help/toggle-my-domain-privacy-settings-32283
 
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rlm said:
Almost _never_ will I get contacted through the CIRA contact form.  Only an experienced domainer would even know that exists, good luck having an end-user ever find that form!

I get what you mean but if someone was "really" determined to contact you, they (or their broker) would eventually find their way to CIRA's contact form. And if your own whois info is already public then using the CIRA's contact form just isn't necessary.

rlm said:
Furthermore, if some lawyer thinks they have a claim on my domain name, I want them to know I'm not hiding and that they can contact me easily, before they start off with a CDRP.  Even if they have no chance of winning, I'm forced to either pay a lawyer or put significant amount of my own time defending that kind of stuff, so I prefer not to go there unless I have to.

Now this is very interesting. I've never been hauled into a CDRP before but I always thought a complainant had to first prove to CIRA they tried contacting/communicating with you before CIRA ever handed them your contact information (for them to initiate CDRP proceedings). And if that's the case, CIRA's whois contact form might be the only way for them to do so, if your info isn't already public. Is that not generally true? I trust you know more than me about the procedures but I was also able to find the requirement I'm thinking of, and it turns out it's required they use CIRA's contact form, according to this:

2. Who May Request Disclosure of Information. Requestors must be a person who complies with all of the obligations of Section 3 below.

3. Requirements. To be able to request Information, a Requestor must meet all of the following requirements:

.....

e) The Requestor or their authorized representative must have both: (a) attempted to send a message regarding the Dispute to the Registrant through the Interested Party Contact Procedure (accessible on the CIRA website), no less than 14 calendar days prior to this request; and (b) was not able to resolve the Dispute through this mechanism. Communications through other means, or regarding other matters, do not satisfy this requirement.

https://www.cira.ca/policy/rules-and-procedures/request-disclosure-registrant-information

rlm said:
And the whole concept of spam concerns are bogus. I have thousands of domains and don't have a spam problem.  In fact, I have the opposite problem, overly aggressive spam filters blocking business emails that are absolutely positively not spam...  The vast majority of spam comes more from the user's careless use of their email address by subscribing to unscrupulous businesses who sell/share their data, not whois harvesting.

I'm surprised to hear this. I don't use any special spam filters but I still get emails about renewing domains I dropped almost 10 years ago (and forgot I ever owned). It's usually scam emails about renewing old .COM domains I had at GD before GD started offering free whois privacy, or from web developers trying to sell their services for my domains. I always attributed those to my whois info being public, given there's a clear link. I don't get too many, or not as many as before, but I would have assumed someone like you must get a ton.
 
I find it really cut down on the spam *THUMBSUP*

Nafti said:
I personally like privacy on with my domains. I believe that I do have a few with no privacy.

In the last 5 years, I have had only 1 inquiry for one of my domains via Whois lookup. In my opinion, as long as you have a contact page up, a potential buyer will find a way to reach you. I like my privacy private. :) But to each their own.
 
Esdiel said:
2. Who May Request Disclosure of Information. Requestors must be a person who complies with all of the obligations of Section 3 below.

3. Requirements. To be able to request Information, a Requestor must meet all of the following requirements:

.....

e) The Requestor or their authorized representative must have both: (a) attempted to send a message regarding the Dispute to the Registrant through the Interested Party Contact Procedure (accessible on the CIRA website), no less than 14 calendar days prior to this request; and (b) was not able to resolve the Dispute through this mechanism. Communications through other means, or regarding other matters, do not satisfy this requirement.

That is interesting, since I generally don't use privacy, they don't have to request my info and therefore it really doesn't apply to me. But that is interesting to know and would obviously make sense for those domains with Privacy.
 

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