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Ask HN: Am I wrong to feel betrayed by whois for publishing my address?

1 points by grimtrigger ↗ HN
I've been building websites for less than a year now and have registered 4 or 5 domains for side projects. I used a credit card and my (parents) address was published for the whole world to see.

No other web service could get away with grabbing information from your credit card and posting it publicly. Why is whois given such an exemption?

3 comments

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bdfh42
Your address is part of the public record for your domain registrations.

Think about it the other way around. Suppose you need to serve a legal document to the owners of a web site you are having problems with - you need the address. Not being able to contact a web site owner would be a bad thing - right?

Your credit card security is hardly being undermined by a public record of your address is it?

iKnowKungFoo
This was all disclosed by whichever registrar you used. It's your fault for not noticing before you agreed to their Terms and Conditions. FWIW, there are some registrars (GoDaddy, for instance) that give you the option of a private registration, where they mask your public data with their own.