In an article published in the azcentral.com, Godaddy.com is claiming they invented the idea of a “Private Domain Registrations.”
“Go Daddy has vaulted to the top of the domain-registrar heap with the help of several innovations, perhaps the most significant among them being “private” domain registration.”
“Go Daddy invented and launched the concept of private registration in 2002 with the formation of an affiliate company called Domains By Proxy Inc. It has been hugely successful, and nearly every Go Daddy competitor has since copied the idea.”
“Private registration allows the registrant of an Internet domain, or Web address, to keep his or her name and contact information out of a searchable online directory known as the “Whois” directory.”
“Go Daddy deputy general counsel Nima Kelly said company founder Bob Parsons came up with the idea for private registration when a customer who didn’t know her domain-registration information would be made public complained to the company.”
“Go Daddy deputy general counsel Nima Kelly said company founder Bob Parsons came up with the idea for private registration when a customer who didn’t know her domain-registration information would be made public complained to the company.””A stalker had gotten her personal information by doing a Whois lookup on her website, Kelly said.””Parsons agreed to replace her contact information with Go Daddy’s company information, Kelly said. Shortly thereafter, he came up with the idea for Domains By Proxy.”
“Parsons also developed the basic concepts for how private registration works, which have since been copied by dozens of competitors.”
Hum Godaddy.com invented private registrations?
Before Godaddy.com no registrar offered private registrations?
Doesn’t sound right but we will let others chime in on this one.
Its a pretty strange story in my opinion that Godaddy is claiming they started private domain registrations and now also seems to be out in full support of a bill squarely aimed at people who use domain names to violate IP laws and many of those use the privacy that Godaddy says it created.
if … “Parsons agreed to replace her contact information with Go Daddy’s company information” … when … “a customer [who didn’t know her domain-registration information would be made public] complained to the company” … so … “Shortly thereafter, he [Parson] came up with the idea for Domains By Proxy.” … then, the REAL inventor has been the customer, not Parson [just simple logic]
GD might actually been the first. I can’t claim i can proof them wrong.
Doesn’t help you much in UDRP claims though. Or did GD ever take the fall in such cases ?
Personally i find the whole ICANN whois policy a joke. It’s a good thing ICANN has appointed a workgroup regarding this.
You really care about privacy, adapt a model like Eurid.
And if there is an issue, law enforcement can work out the details real quick with Eurid.
Law enforcement should work more with registries instead of throwing the issue over the fence towards registrars.
This might solve alot of the issues that the GAC raised in Dakar.
They might be the first…9 years ago so it might be hard to prove otherwise at this point.
I’ve always heard that Godaddy was the first. But like most things dealing with the net, I have no idea if it’s really true
it’s a fun thought experiment to consider how many registrations godaddy would have if they had never “pioneered” this idea of whois privacy. if we said to all resgistrants using this service “privacy is now discontinued”, what would happen? would the number of registrations drop?
another fun thought exercise is to carefully scrutinise the reasons given for needing to “protect” whois data from public disclosure. what are these reasons? who provided them? when? were/are they based on actual data? are they based on anecdotes? are the reasons still valid?
what we have is a system whereby we do not require the whois contact info data to be accurate and at the same time we do not distribute the data in bulk like a phone book, because it needs “protection”. instead we opt for a “directory assistance” approach. and we limit how many queries any one ip address can make per day. it is a very strange system.
looking back on pre-internet history, why didn’t we ban the phone book? under the whois rationale, we could have stopped cold calling. we could have stopped telemarketing.
what percentage of telephone numbers are unlisted?
shouldn’t all telephone numbers be unlisted?
maybe there are other uses of the phone book besides trying to sell people stuff or harassing them?
if we are going to encourage more copyright litigation with a new law aimed at domain name registrants, then it seems what is needed is a reliable mechanism to filing complaints against them. for each registrant we need what lawyers call an “address for service”. that’s the bare minimum info that is needed.
how would this new law be different from e.g. the DMCA? with the DMCA a complainant needs somewhere to send the request for some material to be taken down.
this new law seems a bit broader than the dmca. the concept of infringing _material_ has shifted to the concept of infringing _websites_. and the mechanism for resolution of compyright disputes is a sort of brute force: they are targeting the ICANN DNS. a complaining party might force the “takedown” of an _entire website_, including any other non-infringing sites on subdomains, via removal of the domain name from the ICANN DNS. this is a little different than simply requesting that some allegedly infringing material be taken down.
we are not given the specific examples of the activity that is motivating this law. but whatever that activity is, this law itself looks shoddy.
I don’t know if they were the first but I know they own a patent on it.
“but I know they own a patent on it”
so, legally, he actually IS the absolute first
thread closed 🙂
Well It has been a while but I would have to say I can’t remember anyone prior to godaddy offering such a service. It’s weird how things become common place and nobody really remembers who or where something came into the equation hah.
Didn’t Dotster have a form of privacy before this?
CircleID, 2000: “registrars such as Go Daddy have recently developed private registration systems.”
http://www.circleid.com/posts/invalid_whois_data_who_is_responsible
Well, as many of you know, Moniker was offering Whois Privacy (now known as Moniker Privacy Services) in 2001 because I invented and pioneered that service specifically for one of the most famous domainers in our industry at the time – Yun Ye. When I transferred all of his names from NSI to Moniker, he requested to have a privacy setting, so we not only put a privacy whois on the public whois record, we also developed and implemented a special whois privacy server configuration that would also handle 301 URL forwarding and spam filtering technology. The system would also forward messages from the public through these filters to the domain owner. Many of our early customers used this service in 2001 and still use it today.
Godaddy definitely copied our system/service as they did so many products and implementations we came up with at the time….including anti theft systems and our radio show – DomainMasters.
Although Godaddy has filed for many patents as if they invented many of the products and services they filed patents for, it was really others that invented many of those. Godaddy just had the financial resources at the time to file for all the patents they have when we were using those resources to build our business and provide the best security and service at the time.
In any case, yes it is an interesting and odd article and not sure what its purpose is.
Just wanted to set the record straight.
My take on it is Bob Parsons and team rips off their own workforce, so I think that probably applies to other areas of the business as well, Corbin v Godaddy AZ Federal Court
“We also believe that our current efforts to rebrand ourselves from Overstock.com to O.co may have contributed to the decline in revenue.”
monte +1
if you’re a registrar, what are the chances godaddy comes to you asking for license fees for your use of domain privacy, or tries to use its “numerous business method patents” as leverage against you in negotiating some transaction? you’d have to be pretty naive to fall for that. there is prior art all over the web.
patent law firms and the uspto are getting the last laugh here. because worthless internet business method patents are still expensive to file and still carry substantial maintenance fees. the lawyers and the pto are not at all opposed to being on the receiving end of such wasteful spending.
Yes; and it’s not just Moniker that The Great Elephant Killer copied from and filed patent apps and obtained patents on.
The truth will come out if he ever attempts to assert this patent junk against others.
Next thing you know he’ll claim to have invented domains and the Internet.
Sheesh.
Patented? Guess that’s why it is so commonly available!
Its a pretty strange story in my opinion that Godaddy is claiming they started private domain registrations and now also seems to be out in full support of a bill squarely aimed at people who use domain names to violate IP laws and many of those use the privacy that Godaddy says it created.
Sorry that’s a cheap shot. Privacy and the ip bill have nothing to do with one another. Privacy is not Indicative much less proof of malfeasance on the part of the domain owner but the comment does sound funny coming from a domainer
This also gives Godaddy an excuse to refuse to transfer your domain to another host. In my case, the Godaddy password does not equal the privacy password and they will not allow me access to move my domain until I submit alot of paperwork. They know it is me, when I call in, as I am allowed to make any other changes (e.g. delete webpages, purchase and install other services). The ONLY part I am locked out of is MOVING my domain.