Reading another thread, I thought of something that came up recently. We picked up a dropped domain, turned on DBP and threw up a site. Previous owner wasn't happy and had their attorney send DBP a fax. It is important to note there was NO court order or subpoena here, just a letter on an attorney's letterhead. DBP said either we contact them, or they will hand over our info. Seems like DBP is not as secure as I thought. The letter we received from DBP was: > Dear Customer, > > Since we have received notice that there is a possible legal issue > regarding the domain name [SNIP] you will need to contact > the complainant no later than August 30, 2010, and provide enough > information to remove Domains By Proxy from this issue. > > In order to prove you have attempted contact, we require that you or > your representative copy or blind copy [customer service] > in your initial correspondence with the complainant. Failure to comply > can result in the disclosure of your contact information to the > complainant. > > Complainant information: > > [SNIP] > > Kind regards, > > [SNIP] > Domains By Proxy, Inc. >
Wow, thats pretty weak by DBP. You should go through their TOS and see what it says about this. If they are breaking their own TOS then you have legit beef, but I'm guessing in the fine print it says if they are contacted by a legal entity they will hand over your info. That sucks big time though. Hopefully word gets out about this. I wonder how secure the WhoIS guard that namecheap offers is?
The goal of whois protection services is to shield your data from the public database, not protect you from legal action.
