Register your domain without publishing your personal details
When you register a domain, your contact details can end up published in WHOIS, a directory anyone can query. Domain privacy replaces them with those of the privacy service.
This is how your domain reads in public WHOIS
Anyone can look up the WHOIS record of a domain: no account, and no reason to give. This is the same record read twice — without the privacy service, and with it.
Without domain privacy
- Registrant Name
- Your first and last name
- Registrant Organization
- Your company Ltd.
- Registrant Email
- yourname@yourcompany.com
- Registrant Phone
- Your contact phone number
- Registrant Street
- Your postal address
- Registrant City
- Your city and country
These are the details the body that runs the extension asks for when you register the domain. They have to be accurate and up to date, with privacy or without it.
With domain privacy
- Registrant Name
- Privacy service
- Registrant Organization
- Registrar privacy service
- Registrant Email
- Privacy service email address
- Registrant Phone
- [PROTECTED]
- Registrant Street
- [PROTECTED]
- Registrant City
- [PROTECTED]
The service details replace yours in the directory. The body that runs the extension still holds your real details, as its policy requires: what changes is what is published.
A public detail is a detail somebody will use
Less spam, fewer calls
WHOIS is one of the most harvested sources for spam bots. With privacy on, your inbox and your phone number stop appearing in that listing.
Less material for fraud
Domain theft attempts start by learning who the holder is. A name, an email address and a phone number are enough to write a fake expiry notice that looks like it came from the registrar.
Your address out of the directory
If you register in your own name, WHOIS publishes your postal address. For anyone working from home, that means publishing where they live.
You are still findable
Your customers find you through your site, your contact address and your profiles, not through WHOIS. Privacy does not affect how visible your project is.
Bought per domain, with an annual fee
It is not included: it is an add-on attached to each domain and renewed alongside it. In the cart and in your client area it appears as “ID Protection”.
Available on, among others
- .com
- .net
- .org
- .info
- .online
- .store
- .site
- .shop
- .app
- .dev
- .lat
Not available on
- .com.ar
- .com.mx
- .mx
- .co
- .com.co
- .cl
- .es
That decision belongs to the body that runs each extension, not to us. NIC Argentina, for one, publishes the holder of every .ar domain and offers no privacy service. Section 3.3 explains it in the Domain Registration Agreement.
In the cart, or in your client area
While registering the domain
On the cart configuration step, tick “ID Protection” next to the domain. It is active from day one, with nothing to do afterwards.
On a domain you already have
Sign in to your client area, open Domains, pick the domain and go to Addons. You order it there and the directory details change next.
Renewal
It renews with the domain and for the same term. Stop renewing it and your details are published in the directory again.
Answers before you begin.
What is WHOIS, and who can look it up?
It is the public directory that publishes the details of a domain holder: name, organisation, email, phone and address. Anyone can query it, from a terminal or from a website, without identifying themselves or giving a reason. Which fields are published is decided by the body that runs each extension.
With privacy on, do I still receive the notices about my domain?
Yes. Expiry notices, the verifications the registry requires and anything we send you go to the email address on your client account, which is never the one published. Privacy changes what a stranger reads in the directory, not how we reach you.
Does it affect search ranking or how the domain works?
No. The domain resolves the same, the SSL certificate is issued the same, and search engines index your site by its content, not by WHOIS. Ownership does not change either: you remain the registrant.
Register your domain without leaving your details on show
Search for the name you want and turn privacy on in the same step.
