No-KYC domain registration: one email, no ID

What do you ask for to register a domain?

One email address per domain, which you confirm by clicking a link. It is the only contact data we collect, and it is required.

Your account is identified by a random account number. The domain is registered in your name, as registrant of record, and you are not asked for a postal address or a phone number. You pay from a crypto balance, so there is no card and no bank account either.

No-KYC here means no identity check. It does not mean we keep nothing: we keep the account number, the verified email of each domain, your orders and the payments that credited your balance. The field-by-field list is on what we hold about you.

Why do you need an email at all?

Because ICANN's contract with every accredited registrar, our registrar partner included, makes it a condition of the registration. The Whois Accuracy Program Specification of the 2013 Registrar Accreditation Agreement says:

• within 15 days of a registration, a transfer or a change of contact data, the registrar verifies the registrant's email address or phone number;
• if the registrant does not respond, the registrar must verify by hand or suspend the domain;
• if the data is knowingly false, the registrar suspends or deletes the domain.

So a registration with no working contact is not possible on a gTLD such as .com. The email route is the one we use, because it needs nothing but an address you control. The email also lets us reach you before any action on your domain, as our policy promises: you are told before any action on your domain, unless the law or the court order forbids it.

What happens to the email you verify?

It stays with us and is never published. Public WHOIS/RDAP shows no email of yours.

• Messages to the domain contact are forwarded to your verified email; spam and bulk mail are not forwarded.
• Disclosure follows one rule: We release the data we hold only when Panamanian law requires it (a Panamanian court or prosecutor's order), or in a UDRP case. See data disclosure.

You can use an address created only for that domain. It must keep working: a bounce during the 15-day check leads to a suspension under ICANN's rule.

Why do fake contact details backfire?

Because false details turn a dispute you could win into one you are presumed to have lost on intent. A pseudonymous email address is lawful. A false name, a false address or a dead email is a different matter.

• United States, trademarks. Under 15 U.S.C. §1117(e), knowingly giving materially false contact information to a registrar for a domain used in an infringement creates a rebuttable presumption that the infringement was wilful. Wilful infringement raises the damages.
• United States, copyright. 17 U.S.C. §504(c)(3)(A) sets the same presumption for copyright infringement online.
• ICANN. Knowingly false data obliges the registrar to suspend or delete the domain.

Our set-up avoids the problem: we ask for nothing you would need to invent. Where a registry demands a name and postal address, we supply our own company's, openly, through Domain protection.

Which registries need more than an email?

Some registries require a registrant name and postal address, and some require your own identity, citizenship or local presence. We treat the two groups differently.

Sold with Domain protection only (12): .de, .uk, .nl, .cc, .to, .ch, .pl, .be, .at, .cz, .nz, .fi. These registries need a name and a postal address. With Domain protection the registry receives those of DomaineGoat LLC, so you still give only an email. The listed price includes the option.

Not sold at all: .us, .eu, .fr, .ca and .it. Their rules require the registrant itself to qualify, or forbid a proxy, so our company's details cannot stand in for yours. Selling them would mean asking for your identity, which we do not do.