What sort of phone numbers are allowed as the WHOIS contact?

Question

Are there any restrictions on the type of phone number I can give as my WHOIS contact? Notwithstanding that it is a phone number which can be used to contact the domain holder.

For example, what if I change it to a premium rate line? If the scammers want to talk to me so much, make them pay for the privilege!

In the UK, cell phones are more expensive for the caller to call than land-lines, so I suspect a significant number of people are already listing a "premium rate" phone number.

EDIT: Many thanks to Chloe and Eduardo for their links to WHOIS privacy services, but I'm really interested in an answer to my question. The idea of someone using a premium rate phone number was to set the scene for the most extreme example of a phone number that defeats the purpose of having a phone number published in the first place.

Answer 1

It depends on the Registrar, but basically you can put whichever you like.

Also there are "WHOIS Privacy Protection" packages from most providers, those let you hide your information and provide a bogus email that will forward to you email, just so your real information is not public.

I've used http://www.whoisguard.com/ before, but pretty much every provider has something like this as an add-on.

Answer 2

Consider a telemarketing block feature which eliminates robocalls. It's like a CAPTCHA for your telephone.

http://www.callcentric.com/faq/4#374

With our Telemarketer Block feature you can dramatically reduce and potentially eliminate unwanted telemarketing and robocalls.

When activated, inbound callers (to the DIDs that you have this feature activated on) will hear an automated message which will require them to press a specific key (1-9) in order to complete their call. Your Callcentric Phone WILL NOT begin to ring, until AFTER the inbound caller has successfully pressed the requisite key on their phone.