While I am in NO WAY defending Righthaven (they had it coming, really), these draconian domain rules are ridiculous. Having to pay £5 (or whatever it is now) to hide your personal information on your domain is truly evil.<p>But obviously Righthaven doesn't care about their domain because if I recall correctly, GoDaddy sends three notifications before they suspend your domain.
As much as RightHaven might have been asshats, this sort of precedent concerns me.. I've had domain information that has been <i>years</i> out of date before I realized it.<p>I wonder what degree of "correctness" they need.. if I leave off an apartment number, is that bad enough? If I renew for 3 years and don't bother updating in there, can I get shut down?
Uh oh, this could be a bad sign of things to come for grey/black hat SEOs. Providing invalid WHOIS information is common practice among SEOs because it can help boost rankings when it appears like all your interlinked sites don't look like they are owned by the same person. If this is the beginning of a crackdown, there will be more drama to come.
Wonder what was invalid. E-mail bouncing, maybe?<p><pre><code> Last Updated on: 12-Feb-11
Administrative Contact:
Gibson, Steven rgibson@righthaven.com
Righthaven LLC
9960 West Cheyenne Avenue
Suite 210
Las Vegas, Nevada 89129
United States
+1.7025275900 Fax -- +1.7025275909
</code></pre>
Slow down, there is no bad precedent here since black/gray SEOs know the risk when they falsify WHOIS data. Domain seizure for falsifying WHOIS has gone on for a long time. Every registrar reminds you of it constantly and it is your responsibility to keep it updated. There is not much active checking either (if any) and in my experience domains are only taken if they are actually reported through WDPRS and even then it is a long shot.<p>I dont think GoDaddy would suspend a domain without repeatedly trying to contact the registrant either and if they do, time to move. Make sure the e-mail details at your registrar and on your domains actually work, respond to them, and you should be fine.<p>This makes a case for not having your domain registration e-mail be handled by that domain too