All the domain registrars are now making a whole industry providing domain privacy to customers. They profit from it. I even get a lot of emails that give me the dire warning that I don’t have privacy on my domains!
Domain privacy (often called Whois 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). Source
At one point, the tech support guy at GoDaddy tried to tell me I had no choice because it’s their policy that all domains have privacy. I argued, got a supervisor on the line and got it done my way. No privacy for the Whois information on my domain names.
Why don’t I want Domain Name Privacy?
As a business owner, I feel that domain privacy hides information from my potential customers. The ability to check to make sure that I, the person they are dealing with or talking to, is the actual owner of that website and domain name. People want to know who they are really doing business with.
Just remember, it’s an “option” and it’s up to you, not your domain registrar. If you want domain name privacy, I totally understand. You probably have your reasons. I just don’t like the way some of them push people into accepting that they need to pay for domain privacy.
Do you have other questions about domain names?
I was buying, selling, appraising and brokering domain names in 1995. It was really open back then. All of the one-word domain names had been taken already. Every single word in the dictionary, whether it made sense or not. And everyone thought each domain name they registered was going to make them rich. It worked out for some and for others not so much.
This is also a good read. Why Would I Ever Want More Than One Website?
If you need help with anything to do with domain names, I’d be happy to help. Fill out the form on our contact page and I’ll get back to you asap.
