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Ask HN: How To Delete Whois History From Domaintools.com

4 points by bosch ↗ HN
I'm trying to clean up the public information I've used to register domains back in the old days as it references a lot of old address' and irrelevant information like my parents address and phone number. I've done fairly well but am unable to find out how to delete it from domaintools.com? I've tried sending e-mails to a number of contacts but am unable to contact anyone within the company.

Does anyone know how to do this?

Bonus Question: What other services might be collecting private information on me based on old whois records?

6 comments

[ 3.7 ms ] story [ 24.5 ms ] thread
juanito
I don't think you can remove the whois information. It is a matter of public record, and they can and do archive it.

From what I've seen in the past, domaintools will not be willing to remove this information.

bosch
I know it was public record, but my main problem is that having it archived from 10 years ago is ridiculous. I'm sure many people have entered info into their WhoIs information they don't want publicly available before they really knew what it was really used for.
lzw
DomainTools does have customer service. Their not very secretive, so you could concievably just drop by their offices. They're located in downtown seattle, so not that far from you.

They may have a policy against it, in which case you may need to find a legal way to exert pressure, and get something written up by a lawyer in the form of a cease & desist.

But before going that route, I'd try contacting the founder directly. (His name escapes me, but try checking their blog...)

bosch
It's not worth a drive down to Seattle but I'll have to dig deeper to find out how to contact their customer service.

I suppose I could get a lawyer involved, but I'd much rather figure out how to do this on my own. I'm sure it would be in their interest to keep the information relevant.

bobds
The DomainTools archiving can be annoying. I don't think they will want to remove your data, it would set a bad precedent for them. An archive of previous whois records is by definition going to have out of data information, so that probably shouldn't be your main argument.

Let us know how it goes.

bosch
My main problem is that it's old irrelevant information that I would rather not have in the public domain and I think they should remove it if requested to or just update it. What the WhoIs information was 10 years ago is irrelevant.