Re: Facebook comparison?
My little .com hobby domain has my name, address and contact phone number registered for it, as is required by the domain registrar. I don't know how rigorous they are in checking that and what would happen if I provided false details.
I lied glibly...there is no way in hell I'm publishing my home address for the whole internet...that's a lot of people and statistically some of them are going to be full-bore loonies. Too risky for me.
Every year my registrar sends me an "Are you sure this correct? Please change any incorrect details" email, as mandated by ICANN and there the matter lies. Literally, in my case. There is probably some variation in how registrars go about verifying, but it's an extra cost so I doubt that any of them are going to be exceptionally stringent about it.
It's a scam anyway...ICANN insists on real names and then clips you for a bit extra so it's not published to all and sundry on the WHOIS. A lightweight protection racket.
That's for .coms...different TLD's have different requirements ranging from none at all to tax numbers (.com.au) with quite a few of the country ones requiring a local presence. There's a list here.