I have several domains registered with openSRS, yet I get these postal mail letters from the Domain Registry of America. I know it is a scam, I really feel for those who fall for these transfers.
I was wondering, what would happen if I update my WHOIS records, and in address line #2 I put, “This letter contains anthrax”.
Now, I would be the recipient, I would hope the USPS would scan for such stuff, so perhaps this Domain Registry of America would get in trouble, am I putting myself at legal risk?
IANAL, but this is a very bad idea and not a very elegant solution to your problem. Anthrax scares are a much greater nuisance than spam or junk mail. Don’t do it.
You’d probably end up getting arrested if you did the anthrax thing. If you want to be a little more anonymous. GoDaddy.com had a privace feature called Domains By Proxy. Everything stays the sames, but they put their info in the whois info. And the Email all gets forwarded to you.
Per ICANN rules (the organization that is in charge of all the popular domain name extensions), the data in whois must be accurate. If the info isn’t accurate, the name can be taken from you. Putting in false info (either to avoid spam or hide your identity) is a bad idea.
Many different registrars offer services with which you can pay them and then they’ll make your data private by putting in theirs. Congratulations, you just paid someone to take ownership of your name. Selling for negative dollars doesn’t strike me as very bright. Sure, you are contracted with them to get the name back at any time, but lawyers being what they are, I’d hate to see what happens if one of those places goes bankrupt or decided to mess with the ownership. How would you prove that name is yours if their site went down? And if you have some written proof, how are you going to force them to respond if they go out of business?
Do what you want, but I don’t take chances. If I get some spam, oh well, better than potentially losing the name.