I’m getting started in IM, and I’m going to use a blog as my platform.
I’m researching security measures for the site and my business.
Does anyone use domain proxy services? Is there any point?
Has anyone had any bad experiences (see below) by having their details available through a whois domain search?
Here’s a sales pitch from one proxy service:
“Our service also protects your privacy in that spammers, stalkers, harassers, data miners, and identity thieves can’t get to you without getting past Dynadot’s watchful eyes”.
If you have an email address available in the whois database then you can be pretty certain that spammers will get hold of it. Make sure not to use your personal email here. I use domains@MYDOMAIN.com for the contact email on all domains I own. I can then set the spam filters pretty heavily on that as I don’t use it for anything else.
Additionally I have had scammers offer to buy my domains using the contact details available in the whois, but they were pretty easy to spot.
BUT I would never give money to a website/service that hides their contact details by using a domain proxy service or anything similar. If you are running a business you should have a physical address, real phone number, and real email address listed on your site - and that matching up to your whois details is always good. Domain proxy services are useful if you have something to hide, if you don’t then you don’t need to use them.