I amk trying to find contact info for the owner of the domain
www.gaggle.com. A "who is" search seems to only give a registrar
called proto web and they know nothing about the domain owner.

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Clarification of Question by henry1-ga on 07 Nov 2003 15:53 PST

none of those links led me to the owner. can you make another attempt.

All I found was circumstantial evidence - no contact details:

WHOIS Details for Gaggle.com 
============================= 

Registrant 
Proto Web Co 
8/F Bank of America Tower 
Central, 
HK 
Registrar..: IARegistry.com (http://www.iaregistry.com) 
GAGGLE.COM 
Created on..............: 18-Apr-2001 
Expires on..............: 18-Apr-2004 

Administrative Contact: 
Administrator, Domain nospam1@proto.com 
Proto Web Co 
8/F Bank of America Tower 
12 Harcourt Road 
Central, HK 
+852.2588.3438 

Technical Contact: 
Administrator, Domain nospam1@proto.com 
Proto Web Co 
8/F Bank of America Tower 
12 Harcourt Road 
Central, HK 
+852.2588.3438 

Name servers for this domain: 
NS1.PROTO.COM 64.40.99.2 
NS2.PROTO.COM 64.40.102.2 



The address belongs to serviced offices in Hong Kong: 
http://www.moveandstay.com/hongkong/offices_description.asp?id=461 

A search for the phone number finds that the same registration details
apply to the following domains:

arkangel.com 
iopener.com 
roleplayinggame.com 
levy.com 
testequipment.com 
ahead.net 
multilist.com 
twitches.com 
polly.com 
schoolboard.com 
footsteps.com 
://www.google.com/search?q=852.2588.3438 

A reverse email search on all proto.com emails provided one lead, a
USA individual, but there is otherwise nothing to suggest he had or
still has a business connection with proto.com. My guess is that he
used to own the domain, but it has since been hi-jacked.

The mail server for proto.com is at verticalaxis.com 

These threads suggest that the same company (aka Ultimate Search Inc.)
make money from holding expired domain names for ransom:
http://www.virtuallystrange.net/ufo/updates/2003/sep/m16-016.shtml 
http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum25/947.htm 

More information from Expired Domains fits in with the PPC search
pages that appear when you visit any other sites registered by
proto.com;
http://www.expiredtraffic.com/index.php?page=ultsearch 

Ultimate Search have been involved in a number of domain name disputes: 
://www.google.com/search?q=+site:arbiter.wipo.int+ult+%22hong+kong%22+domains 

...and even have an Open Directory category: 
http://dmoz.org/Society/Issues/Business/Allegedly_Unethical_Firms/Ultimate_Search,_Inc./
 
robertskelton-ga
Google Answers Researcher

Neither proto web nor ultimate search are the owners of the domain.
Can you please spend some more time on this. Thanks.

When companies choose to keep their ownership secret, it becomes
almost impossible to "prove" who owns a domain. Visiting the list of
domains also owned by "proto web" suggests that they are a company
that profits by parking keyword domain names with placeholder home
pages filled with keyword advertising.

If only the domain registration system required authentication of
identity... the name on the paying credit card would be a start.

If they have amail server that catches all mail, you can try to email
them at webmaster@gaggle.com. See if you get a reply. It's worth a
try.