When registering a domain part of the process involves you giving your contact details to your domain registrar. This includes your name, address, email and phone number.
But did you know once you have completed the registration process all of your personal contact information becomes immediately available to anybody via the Whois database?
However, you can stop the disclosure of all your contact details by using a domain privacy protection service. This service ensures your contact details will be kept private.
So ask yourself…..“Is domain name privacy necessary on my website”
If the answer is “yes”, then I highly recommend that you use a domain privacy service.
If your registrar does not offer Whois privacy protection you can transfer your domain to a registrar that does.
When I was researching this topic, I kept asking myself is private domain registration important to me. I mean who would be interested in my contact details?
But when the penny dropped that the whole world could have instant free access to my personal contact details, and it would only take one person for reasons unknown to start an online attack, or I could be targeted by spammers, hackers or telemarketers……my answer was a resounding yes!
In my view it’s definitely worth it and I use a Whois privacy protection service called “Withheld for Privacy”. This is available on domains registered with Namecheap.
How to Check if Your Contact Details are Private
An easy way is to click here and enter your domain in to a Whois Lookup database.
You will then see what contact details are stored in the database for the domain you entered.
Is Whois Privacy Protection Free?
This is currently available free on domains registered with Namecheap.
Namecheap regularly offer discounts for new domain registrations and you can see what coupons are currently available on this page (opens up in new window).
One Final Important Point
Please read the following quote from Namecheap:
“The private domain registration service Withheld for Privacy is available for almost all domains Namecheap offers. Due to registry restrictions, It cannot be used with .ca, .ch, .cn, .co.in, .co.uk, .com.au, .com.es, .com.sg, .de, .es, .eu, .fr, .gg, .id, .in, .is, .li, .me.uk, .net.au, .nl, .nom.es, .nu, .nyc, .org.es, .org.au, .org.uk, .paris, .sg, .to, .uk, .us, .vote, .voto, .xn--3ds443g domains.”
These restrictions are not only enforced by Namecheap. All domain registrars that offer a Whois privacy protection service have to abide by these rules. So check first that the domain you own can be used in conjunction with privacy protection.
Excellent information. Just what I was looking for! THANKS!!
I use NameCheap for my domain and are very happy with them. It only cost me £8ish depending on PayPal’s exchange rate to USD a year and hosting is free from Hostinger and email is free from ZoHo mail. For my WHOIS I currently use the 1 year Whoisguard from NameCheap then after I plan on using a SipGate.co.uk phone number that’s free to keep whois calls separate and I use MyPrivacy.ca for emails on whois which has worked for the spam emails as it asks them to send the email 2 times to get it delivered to my email inbox. My address is my real one but if I get any spam mail through post you can just bin it (it cost them to send btw unlike email/phone.) So I don’t see much point in Whoisguard for my domain but your article is quite good.
If we use Whoisguard, legally do we still own the domain? I have read with other privacy services that the answer is no, in court, the listed registrant on Whois owns the domain.
Hi Jen
I would have thought you would still own the domain, but as I am no legal expert I set up a live chat with Namecheap and asked them the question, here’s how it went:
ME – “Hi, I use Whoisguard on my domains. As Whoisguard is the listed registrant can you confirm who legally owns the domains?”
NAMECHEAP – “In order to confirm that you or someone else is the registrant of the domain name you need to disable WhoisGuard for the domain name and then check it in Whois.”
ME – “So legally if I do not disable Whoisguard does Whoisguard own the domain?”
NAMECHEAP – “No, WhoisGuard does not ligally listed as the registrant of the domain name as it is just privacy protection. But in order to check the real registrant you need to disable WhoisGuard.”
ME – “I see, so Whoisguard is masking the legal owner”
NAMECHEAP – “Yes, you are correct.”
So according to Namecheap you are still the legal owner.
Hope this helps.
Dave
To be honnest I dont understand why we need to pay in order to hide our detail, which is bit obvious for money making.
Hi
Unfortunately it’s a price you have to pay to reduce the risk of receiving tons of junk mail and nuisance calls.
There is a charge (or at least a cost) because the registrar must create you a a bogus/alias account, and keep that mapping. Likewise they then provide the domain locking. As such, there is a service they’re providing with some cost overhead. Yes, they make a lot of money on that service but it’s more than pure moneymaking.
this is awesome 🙂
Glad you like it.
Cheers, this is good stuff.
Thanks
Dave