Domain names multiply with Go Daddy's help

PHOENIX -- Internet domain registrar GoDaddy.com reached a milestone recently, announcing the registration of its 50 millionth domain name since opening in 1997.

Scottsdale, Ariz.-based 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. 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.

Champions of free speech say private domain registration is important because it allows website authors to speak their minds without fear of retaliation. Privacy advocates support it, too, saying it helps reduce identity and domain theft.

But some critics say private domain registration's main value is providing a haven for anonymous trash-talkers and scam artists, particularly if their targets are regular people who can't afford an expensive attorney.

Others say companies such as Domains By Proxy hand over registrants' private information too readily when their Web content angers or offends someone.

Phoenix attorney Fredric Bellamy said private domain registrars could be shielding customers' identities more stubbornly but have opted not to because of potential legal costs.

"Most of these outfits, if they're hit with a valid subpoena, they could challenge it, but by and large they don't want to go that far," said Bellamy, a shareholder at Ryley Carlock & Applewhite and a director of the Arizona Technology Council.

Is Web privacy a right?

In 1998, a private, non-profit corporation called the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, took over responsibility for registering Internet domain names from the U.S. government.

Among ICANN's rules for the registration of Internet domains, such as Amazon.com or unitedway.org, is that the registrants' names, phone numbers and email addresses are to be kept on file in a public registry.

The registry can be searched by visiting the website of any domain registrar and selecting a Whois search.

When a domain is registered through a private registrar such as Domains By Proxy, a Whois lookup displays the registrar's information instead of the website's registrant.

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.