Talk:Registered Agents Inc.

Does not appear to meet notability

This article does not appear to meet the notability guidelines. There appears to be insignificant coverage to merit a standalone article. The cited coverage is primarily from minor sources or even blogs which might not be deemed reliable. The two articles from Wired are from a major source, but seem insufficient to establish notability and are also problematic in that their central focus is speculation on company ownership which they ultimately did not prove - it would likely require piercing the corporate veil in order to establish verifiability of ownership or beneficial ownership -- the Registered Agents' corporate attorney was reported as stating categorically that Dan Keen was not the owner. There is also an issue with the Wired articles, IMHO, in that there seems to be expressed bias in criticizing an apparently legal enterprise. I am thinking this article might be a candidate for deletion, or perhaps redirection to the Epik article which does have the necessary gravitas. CapnPhantasm (talk) 03:06, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

You might want to check out WP:ASSESS to better understand a Start class of article. - Amigao (talk) 23:44, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

Not sure what WP:ASSESS has to do with notability or verifiability. I do know that neutrality is not only policy it is one of the fundamental principles of Wikipedia. The article does include some mildly controversial or derogatory sourced content but it seems as if written by an advocate.

It seems apparent that registered agents in general are not well regulated. It also seems that the majority of the sources use words such as "shadowy new owner" (shadowy firm), "world's most controversial domain registrar", or other derogatory terms.

The name Dan Keen is used in the lead and the body of the article with wording "company founded by Dan Keen". "According to two people familiar with the company" is anonymous.

A "lawyer for Registered Agents Inc. says Keen is not the owner nor an employee of Registered Agents Inc. or Epik, and that he acted as a consultant in the acquisition", directly refutes ownership. However this is anonymous also.

Being the registered agent of shady companies is not illegal. Using fake personas or otherwise masking ownership by providing false names would certainly twart law enforcement and court orders, so would be illegal. Misleading information can be an issue on a BLP or related subject where the names of living people are used. There is the name of a man claimed, and not by himself, to be the owner of a business, and information, from an attorney. Notability does seem to be an issue as there is misinformation or false information.

In my opinion this article is not encyclopedia worthy. An issue is that there is not enough reliable sourcing to definitively point one way or the other or to reliably present both sides of the issue. A lot of the sourcing is fairly new so it could be it is just too soon. There is enough written that points to there possibly being future lawsuits and certainly investigations into all the allegations. At the very least the article should be blown up and restarted. -- Otr500 (talk) 21:09, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

I'm interested in hearing why Amigao has re-rated the article they themmselves wrote, downgrading it from C-Class to Start-class? Regardless, the article continues to be problematic from my POV as it is framed in such a way as to assert primary notability based upon the notability of the company it acquired (Epik) rather than its own merits. CapnPhantasm (talk) 14:05, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

CapnPhantasm, you previously declared that you have undertaken WP:PAID Wikipedia editing for more than one client of NUANCE Agency, an advertising and marketing company. Any WP:COI to declare here? - Amigao (talk) 01:56, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

I no longer work for Nuance, have not for some time, and I have no conflict of interest involved here or anywhere else on Wikipedia. However, you have now tried to threaten and intimidate me on multiple occasions because I corrected repeated instances of exaggerating information on the Registered Agents Inc. article unsupported by the references, and while you essentially conducted a reversion war about the article's quality assessment rating on the Talk page (while over and over I requested you discuss it on the article's Talk page). I also see that you've been taken to task for similar activities by a few others according to your Talk page, including a recent warning by User:MarkH21 for a deceptively described/committed edit on the Persecution of Uyghurs in China article. I'd request that you halt the harassment campaign towards me and ad hominem attempts here or else disclose your own potential WP:COI as your own activities could begin to be seen as some sort of biased activism. CapnPhantasm (talk) 23:19, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

You probably should consider reviewing WP:AGF and WP:ASPERSIONS. - Amigao (talk) 01:29, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

It appears to me that this article does not meet the criteria necessary for notability. There are only a couple of articles in the references that could really be considered to feature the company as the main subject, and the primary notable fact is its identity as the acquirer of Epik, as the introductory statement demonstrates. A company isn't considered notable merely because it acquires a notable subsidiary as per WP:INHERITORG. Additional facts about the company are provided from articles that, in some cases, mention it along with others in the same industry, and they seem to pretty uniformly report on how the company has provided business registration services to a number of bad actors.

This also falls on the sword of the illegal conduct criteria for determining notability of companies which states: It is possible that an organization that is not itself generally notable will have a number of significant sources discussing its (alleged) illegal conduct. Sources that primarily discuss purely such conduct cannot be used to establish an organization's notability under this guideline. (WP:ILLCON)

That seems to describe exactly what we have in this article - and, it's worth mentioning the references just connect other illegal actors to this company and raise questions about legality of advisability of their services - the company isn't formally accused of a crime (at least according to what I read in it).

I have other concerns about the merits of the article as well, but I may save those for now.

I think the main points of this article should be condensed into a paragraph on the Epik page. This does not appear to merit an article on its own - it should be deleted. WmLawson (talk) 02:14, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

It would seem as if this company is probably not notable given INHERITORG and ILLCON would most likely apply here, and really are the only things they are notable for. There is press coverage, but it all is associative, and little to do directly with the company itself. But given the contention, it seems best to bring it up as a proper WP:PROD. (edit) It appears this was already brought up for an AfD without consensus. As such, all we can really do is move forward with improving this article. TiggerJay (talk) 06:49, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Expanded intro, perceived bias, and structure

Hi! I just updated and expanded the intro of the article to better reflect all the reporting done, which if you read through all the references, the consistent thru line really seems to be the company's privacy practices and its secretive nature. Previously, the intro gave more space to the Epik acquisition and what that domain registrar is known for than to RAI, which I think left the entry open to claims of bias that Liz mentioned in their afd closeout. So I think the intro is more informative now and hopefully helps reduce any chance of perceived bias.

What also might help the entry overall is making another section beyond history? I added a reference and sentence about another RAI company, and because it's currently built into a timeline, it's difficult to add anything new while adhering tightly to the current structure. I squeezed it in, but I'm guessing that there will be more stories written about this company. So the current structure probably won't hold. Maybe a controversies section or something similar would help? MertenMerten (talk) 22:36, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. Always best to avoid controversies sections per WP:CSECTION. - Amigao (talk) 14:39, 3 August 2024 (UTC)