What Does Fine Gael Have To Hide?

Apart from their issues with their site getting defaced, Fine Gael have made some very odd decisions about their new domain.

To start with, why on earth are they dropping their .ie domain name in favour of a .com?

Does this mean that Fine Gael isn’t happy being Irish?

(not that using a com means that, but you’d have to wonder)

But more importantly, why on earth are they using a whois privacy service to hide the domain name registration details?

Have a look at the whois output here:

Registrant:
   Domains by Proxy, Inc.
   DomainsByProxy.com
   15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
   Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
   United States

   Registered through: ElectionMall Technologies Inc
   Domain Name: FINEGAEL2011.COM
      Created on: 08-Dec-10
      Expires on: 08-Dec-11
      Last Updated on: 08-Dec-10

   Administrative Contact:
      Private, Registration  FI**************@************xy.com
      Domains by Proxy, Inc.
      DomainsByProxy.com
      15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
      Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
      United States
      (480) 624-2599      Fax — (480) 624-2598

   Technical Contact:
      Private, Registration  FI**************@************xy.com
      Domains by Proxy, Inc.
      DomainsByProxy.com
      15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
      Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
      United States
      (480) 624-2599      Fax — (480) 624-2598

   Domain servers in listed order:
      DNS1.STABLETRANSIT.COM
      DNS2.STABLETRANSIT.COM

Is it even legal for an Irish political party to obfuscate their domain’s details like that?
Even if it is legal it hardly sends a positive message about “transparency”, does it?