Originally Posted By: uc50ic4more
But if I, as a hypothetical "uc50ic4more Tech Services, Inc." was contracted by you to register a domain name and I did so through GoDaddy using your information for owner and administration, there is absolutely no public way of knowing that "uc50ic4more Tech Services, Inc." had anything to do with anything: the domain garak.com would be publicly shown as being owned and administered by Garak, Inc. and any actual information available in emails and at the web server and so on would indicate GoDaddy. In this case, "uc50ic4more Tech Services, Inc." is simply a logistics middleman doing some clerical work for Garak, Inc.
That's true, but that's why I mentioned "clues" rather than bona fide facts. Obviously, the ISP itself has nothing to do with anything, since one can access email accounts from other ISPs, including other ISPs' email servers. Sometimes, you get something useful out of the email header and then can go to check elsewhere, but plenty of times, you do not. You might catch something interesting in their sending domain in the full header that differs from the nominal email domain (of course, I don't mean along the route, either), but that's far from common.
You might come across something like that, say, if one were using Google's service where they let you use your domain name but they handle the email for you, rather than you setting up your own email server. Of course, going back to who owns what and who's contracted to do what brings up the pitfalls you mention; this holds especially true in your mention of a company registering on behalf of another company. And, for many businesses, particularly smaller ones, it's likely more worthwhile to set up email using one's domain name but through something like Google or Hushmail, rather than trying to set up an actual email server. So, whatever one actually "finds out" is suspect.
Rereading the original post carefully, given a very small company, it would be hard to tell, but one might get some clues if one is lucky.
If it were me running the small company and I was the owner of the domain and the small company but didn't have a tech department, here's what I'd be doing. I'd purchase my internet access from SaskTel or Access. I wouldn't go near them for internet space, because they're expensive. I'd find another provider for that. For a small company, I'd probably have Hush handle the email using my domain name, if I were concerned about privacy, and if I were not concerned about privacy, I'd have Google do it, since they can accomplish the same thing.
In such a situation, I could hypothetically set up my own mail server, since it's really not that difficult and I'm not afraid of Linux. By the way, do .ca domain names require a person's name attached to them, in addition to a company's name? It's been so long since I set one up, and I had to provide my name.
