Eh bro my home address now on scam site lor
I use whois privacy for my domain then suddenly got email from someone say they found my house. Check online my real address there leh. The privacy service I pay for what for??
I call registrar they say "your privacy service expired" but I never get email about this. Now my address on some "domain investor" site that scrape WHOIS data. Can I sue or not? How to remove?
Member
The "privacy" layer and redaction are different things. Many registrars now redact personal data by default under GDPR, but this is not the same as a privacy service. Privacy services substitute their own contact data; redaction simply hides yours.
If your registrar is in a jurisdiction without mandatory redaction, and you did not explicitly renew the privacy add-on, your data goes back to public WHOIS. The virtualization tax of domain management: you pay for abstraction that should be baseline.
Check if your TLD offers free redaction independently.
This happened to my coworker. Ngl they thought they had privacy but never actually toggled it on during checkout. The checkbox was like "add privacy protection" and they assumed it was default enabled.
Turns out it was opt-in and they just... never opted. Their address was public for 2 years before they noticed. Wild.
I SNAPPED UP A DOMAIN LAST YEAR AND THE REGISTRAR CHARGED ME $8/YR FOR PRIVACY!! ARE YOU KIDDING!! THEN I FOUND OUT THE REGISTRY REDACTS FREE!! THEY WERE SELLING ME NOTHING!! LITERALLY NOTHING!!
I got 3 years refunded after I threatened chargeback. Privacy upsell is the oldest scam in the game.
Member
I've seen scrapers resell WHOIS history going back to 2017.
Your options:
- Submit GDPR deletion request to each scraper (hit rate ~60%)
- File ICANN complaint if registrar misrepresented service
- Move to registry with native redaction (most gTLDs now)
Some scrapers honor robots.txt for removal. Most don't. The data is commodity at this point.
Same thing happened to me with a .io domain lor
Member
60% hit rate for GDPR? Source on that number?
Member
Personal experience running deletion requests for a client last year. 14 of 23 scrapers complied within 30 days. The rest either ignored or demanded proof of EU residency. It's not a published study.
The real problem is the ones that comply just remove the web view. The raw data is already in a dozen other databases.
Member
I don't think GDPR helps me in Vietnam. My address is on those sites too but no European connection. What do I do?
Member
Correct. GDPR has no extraterritorial effect for non-EU data subjects. However, some scrapers apply their GDPR process globally because it's cheaper than maintaining two workflows. Worth trying even without legal standing.
For .vn domains specifically, VNNIC redacts registrant data by default since 2021. If your data is visible, check whether your registrar is proxying through a non-VNNIC reseller.
