I just became aware of an apparently legitimate US-based company who I shall not provide a link to;
[whois guard] [dot] [com] – operated by [name cheap] [dot] [com].

Their opening gambit “We hate spam like you do” is somewhat ironic when you consider that their services are of enormous help to cyber criminals such as phishing gangs. These ‘people’ need to operate domain names, but they must remain untraceable. Protecting their whois data is an obvious step towards concealing their identity. I am not suggesting that companies offering such services are corrupt, rather that it highlights the dichotomy of the internet privacy problem.

I am not just musing – I identified a Facebook phishing attack this morning, (separate post shortly), and this is where they were hiding:
[view][hyphen][facebook profiles][dot][com]

Only NameCheap Inc of Los Angeles will know what country these criminals operate from. Their company contact details are available online, so why not give them a ring and ask them.

We don’t like the idea that the police can turn up at our office and demand all our confidential client details, but if the FBI turn up at NameCheap’s office because one of their clients is blatantly an organized crime gang, what do we think then of our privacy ideals?