What is domain privacy?
- Domain privacy is a service offered by a number of domain name registrars. A user buys privacy from the company, who in turn replaces the user’s information in the WHOIS with the information of a forwarding service (for email and sometimes postal mail, it is done by a proxy server).
- Domain privacy or WHOIS protection (different registrars sometimes refer to it by different names) hides the domain registrant’s personal information from the public WHOIS database.
What is WHOIS?
- WHOIS is a public record of all data regarding domain registration. All registrant details are considered public information, in addition to the nameservers and other simple details regarding domain registrations (e.g. registration, renewal, and expiry dates).
- If someone knows a registered domain name, they can enter it into any WHOIS search tool on the web to retrieve this public information. With privacy protection in place, all of this information becomes masked.
- This includes hiding your personal name, address, phone, email, and business name. Instead, a generic registrar-generated information set is displayed.
What is WHOIS privacy protection
- When you purchase a domain, your registrar is required by ICANN to enter the contact information of the site owner. Some kind of information must be submitted. So unless you opt to protect your personal data, it goes public.
- Privacy protection hides personal contact information from complete strangers. This is pretty straightforward and is one of the most common reasons domain owners opt for privacy protection.
- Almost everyone has the ability to access the internet, meaning that almost anyone could potentially have access to your mailing address, phone number, and email address. If a website includes debatable or hotly-contested topics, it can be an especially safe move to make personal contact details difficult to obtain to help avoid undesired contact from strangers.
Why you should consider privacy protection/How can WHOIS protection help you
- Protect Your Personal Data
- Stop Unwanted Solicitations
- Protect Your Email Address
- Prevent Domain Hijacking
How WHOIS privacy protection makes your life easier
It’s not a requirement, or a necessity, to invest in domain privacy protection. Still, the cost is negligible when you weigh the value that is offered. If you want to keep the solicitations at bay and protect your privacy, then it can be a worthwhile investment.
