One of the more frustrating developments over the past couple of years is GDPR. Registrars like GoDaddy, Uniregistry, and Network Solutions allowed US-based customers to opt out of the GDPR blocking for Whois records, but Enom and Tucows did not. For instance, this is how the Whois record for Philharmonic.com, a domain name I have registered at Enom, has looked since the implementation of GDPR:
As you can see, all of the contact information shows up as “REDACTED FOR PRIVACY.” This makes it more difficult for people to contact a domain name registrant, especially if the domain name is not resolving to any website or landing page. If a domain name did not have an active landing page or website, the only way I can think of to contact the registrant to buy the domain name is to use the DomainTools Historical Whois tool.
As reported last night by George Kirikos, it looks like Tucows and Enom are now allowing customers to opt out of this GDPR blocking:
Both Tucows/OpenSRS and eNom registrars now allow one to opt-in to display of contact info in public #WHOIS, see:https://t.co/1UyXrnRR7V
andhttps://t.co/rVTSV7FZFH#GDPR #ICANN
— George Kirikos (@GeorgeKirikos) July 30, 2019
In a support thread yesterday, Tucows shared how registrants can expose their Whois information if so desired. Enom also outlined the change in a blog post 12 days ago that I first read last night. The blog post outlines how customers are now able to make their Whois information public.
Here are the steps I took to publish my Whois information on domain names registered at Enom:
At the bottom of the My Domains page, there is a drop down menu that says “LIST ACTIONS.” I can then select a group of domain names and choose “Add Whois Publicity” from the dropdown menu. It then took me to a Bulk Add Services page where I selected “Whois Publicity for $0.00/yr per domain” At this stage, I was told:
“For Whois Publicity to take effect on a domain, ID Protect must be disabled.
A consent request email will be sent to the domain owner if they have not already consented to Whois Publicity.”
Once this was completed, I clicked on the Go to my cart button, where I was taken to my shopping cart with the names and Whois publicity option at $0/year showing. I then checked out and submitted my order as if I was buying a product or service, with the total being $0.00. Shortly thereafter, I received an Order Status email showing the transaction.
Several hours later, I received a data use consent preference email with a link to approve the changes. Shortly after agreeing to the changes, my Whois info began showing up, as you can see here:
The registrant information is now public. The admin and technical contacts remain private, likely because those are potentially third parties who did not consent to public Whois information.
This is a welcome development I am glad Tucows and Enom made.
The EU has screwed up the WHO IS and interfered with the domain system with their lack of understanding why it is needed. If their goal was to protect privacy they should have done so without crippling the WHO IS system. When they redacted the contact info of the domain name owner they also cut off the owner from any direct offers to buy their domain name. They could have added a a function where you could send a blind e-mails to the domain owner with your contact info and then the owner could decide if they wanted create a two way dialogue or they could have added a mechanism to opt out of contact redaction. Then they would have achieved privacy on the terms of the individual domain holder. But no, the EU is an unnecessary Supranational Government of countries. The last thing this world needs is another government. And here is one example of how the EU is responsible for damaging one of their citizens. I tried to buy a domain from a UK owner but could not direct contact them. So a year or so later they failed to renew their domain and it went to auction. I bought their domain name at auction. The registrar and the auction collected all the money and the domain owner got zip thanks to the EU dictating irresponsible and ignorant laws and policies for multiple countries. And the next way the EU is going to F up the Internet is with their recent copyright laws. Read the horrors of EU copyright here: https://bit.ly/2Wj1M0W BREXIT!
The EU is one bureaucratic control freak moron giant, all they do is impose stupid laws and regulations and impose taxes!!
No wonder Britain wants out of the EU.