YesLab - How to Host a Domain

Set up the domain. A smaller registrar who cares a bit about free speech (e.g. mayfirst.org), etc.

etc. No really good ones, because the laws...

First, buy a domain from a decent registrar

(Which domain? select one)

register at dotster.com (recommended by alfredo), or at joker.com for example, or possibly

gandi.net - none great, but some better than others.

some tips from an expert:

“We haven't found a registrar that will stand up to silly legal challenges, unfortunately.

So, I can't make a solid recommendation. Some things to consider:

* Based in the US. Until Cuba starts a public registrar, using a foreign

registrar doesn't seem to help at all. Any corporation who gets a

cease and desist letter from another corporation seems to cave

immediately. With a US based registrar you have more legal options if

you choose to use them. Also, and more importantly, US corporations

are much more vulnerable to public embarrassment around issues of

free speech.

* Don't use their DNS servers. Use MFPL's DNS servers. The minimal job

of a registrar is to register the addresses of your authoritative

name servers (a.ns.mayfirst.org and b.ns.mayfirst.org) with the top

level .org (or .net or .com) registries. Once they have done that,

their computers are no longer involved in the DNS process.”

your risk level depends on whether you’re ripping off a real corporate website or not. if you’re

just creating something from scratch that isn’t posing directly as a corporate website, you

probably don’t need to worry about it getting taken down.

for risky domains:

godaddy.com will cave immediately or even preemptively cave without even receiving a notice,

whereas others it might be a little harder. none is great.

Probably use a fake name and address for the whois - you have to of course use a real credit

card.

choose:

Related - say, RelatedNYC.com or whatever would make sense and look like the real thing. Use

a fake name on the registration, of course. They can probably trace you if they desperately want

to, using credit card info or whatever, but that's never happened to us. And we've never tried to

avoid identification anyhow... (It did happen to a friend in France - policemen came to his door at

6am and rifled through all his stuff, etc. But that's France.)

Definitely use a fake name for the whois record, though - so it’s not tooooo obvious who’s

behind it. The goal isn’t to totally mask for good who’s behind it, but it should take a bit of

homework. The credit card number is the only thing that has to be real.

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