.co.za listing privacy

[Mantis]

I recently had a domain name parked through Afrihost.

Doing a whois lookup on .co.za all my details listed with Afrihost are shown (name, contact numbers, email addresses and residential address.
A domain i registered through Google doesn't show any details as I've opted to keep them private.
When I contacted Afrihost and asked them to remove those details, I was told it cannot be done and that it has to be listed.
How true is this?
And is this only for .co.za or what?

Thanks

 

[ambo]

The recommendation from the ISPA is that all domains are registered in your own name since registering a domain in your ISP's name gives you no protection in a dispute. Your ISP essentially owns your domain and can suspend it or redirect it as they wish and you don't have a leg to stand on.

Certain ISPs will do the privacy registration for you if you explicitly ask for it but it is not considered to be industry best practice.

 

[InTheCube]

How does it work for .com and other international domains?

 

[SilverNodashi]

I recently had a domain name parked through Afrihost.

Doing a whois lookup on .co.za all my details listed with Afrihost are shown (name, contact numbers, email addresses and residential address.
A domain i registered through Google doesn't show any details as I've opted to keep them private.
When I contacted Afrihost and asked them to remove those details, I was told it cannot be done and that it has to be listed.
How true is this?
And is this only for .co.za or what?

Thanks

Yes, this is true. Or rather, this is how the domain registrars in South Africa operate, so you'll get the same
"issues" with .org.za, .za.net & .za.org
You can see it for yourself here: http://co.za/whois.shtml
And read up about their legal info here: http://co.za/legal-FAQ.shtml

The recommendation from the ISPA is that all domains are registered in your own name since registering a domain in your ISP's name gives you no protection in a dispute. Your ISP essentially owns your domain and can suspend it or redirect it as they wish and you don't have a leg to stand on.

Certain ISPs will do the privacy registration for you if you explicitly ask for it but it is not considered to be industry best practice.

This isn't quite the same as what the OP want's, see below.

How does it work for .com and other international domains?

International domain registrars are light years ahead of us, and this is one of the nice extra features they have. They normally use a secure 3rd party which then acts on your behalf when you register the the domain. Basically you register with the 3rd party and tell them to secure blahblah.com (for example). Godaddy uses a company called domainsbyproxy, in which case all the details on the domain will be in the nane if domainsbyproxy. When there's a legal dispute the attorneys would need to contact domainsbyproxy to get your info. It's a much more secure way of domain registration, but I doubt that we'll see it in South African anytime soon. Unless anyone knows of a house buglary, or murder case where someone tracked someone else down due to his details on Uniforum's website.

 

[Mantis]

I guess I'll just leave the .co.za domain parked till it lapses and use the private .com in the meantime.

Would want anyone rocking up at my house for something thats on the site. Besides, I'm moving soon

 

[guest2013-1]

I guess I'll just leave the .co.za domain parked till it lapses and use the private .com in the meantime.

Would want anyone rocking up at my house for something thats on the site. Besides, I'm moving soon

You don't have to wait till it lapses, you can send "D" for DELETE to delete the domain immediately. .co.za has a nice "feature" where they have about 4 - 6 months before an unpaid domain lapses, if you pay on the last minute you can extend your year registration by another 6 months essentially. Doing that constantly should save you quite a bit of money... with .com however, the day it expires is the last day it's active even though it goes into a redemption period

 

[SilverNodashi]

or use a P.O. Box if you're paranoid someone will rock up to kill you. Especially if you register something like "ihatemalema.co.za", or something

 

[Adenoid Hynkel]

Just update the domain yourself at whois.co.za

For the .com, .net etc.. some registrars offer Privacy Protection on the domains for free. whois.com for eg.

 

[Chris_H]

Sorry for the hijack, I need to register a domain for my new CC and had the same thoughts as the OP. Another thing I would like to know is if I register a domain at .com though google for instance, what impact will it hold on searches for my product by South Africans? I mean if they search co.za (or South Africa only) will it then not show up in the search results?

Also will google apps give me hosting for a website? or is that part of the upgraded / non-standard package?

 

[DarkStreet]

I recently had a domain name parked through Afrihost.

Doing a whois lookup on .co.za all my details listed with Afrihost are shown (name, contact numbers, email addresses and residential address.
A domain i registered through Google doesn't show any details as I've opted to keep them private.
When I contacted Afrihost and asked them to remove those details, I was told it cannot be done and that it has to be listed.
How true is this?
And is this only for .co.za or what?

Thanks

I had the same issue. I contacted Uniforum directly and they said it can't be changed, all you can do is send and update ticket but even then the domain history is publicly available.

Another thing I would like to know is if I register a domain at .com though google for instance, what impact will it hold on searches for my product by South Africans? I mean if they search co.za (or South Africa only) will it then not show up in the search results?

Make use of Google Webmaster Tools and set the target geographic area to South Africa else Google will assume your target area is the country in which the server resides. Country level domains (co.za for example) are automatically assigned to the target geographic area.

 

[Chris_H]

Thanks DarkStreet