Everyone yearns for some degree of privacy; either in their personal life or online. What is more comforting than being in the privacy of your own home and the hard earned money safely deposited in a secured bank. Similar circumstances exists while being online. Being in control of your own personal information, what information others have access to, and controlling how someone uses or exploits this information is paramount for a safe and enjoyable online experience.

In the domaining world, the current Whois policies, which mandates personally identifiable information to be disclosed, somewhat undermines our privacy. The main aspect of privacy is anonymity, but the Whois policy requires you to disclose your personal details to the whole world, defeating the whole idea of online privacy and anonymity.

Why domain registration privacy is needed?

We live in a globalized world; internet users come from all works of life. In order to exercise your freedom of speech, privacy is a prerequisite. Unfortunately, some organizations and Governments can prosecute you for exercising this very freedom. If people are forced to disclose their personal details, there exists a reluctance to fully express your ideas. Bloggers from a totalitarian country would find it safer to express their political and economic views if their anonymity is protected. Simply stating, domain registration privacy will allow anyone to set up his/her website, no matter where they come from, and participate in one-to-many discussions freely thus reaching a global audience. Free speech characterizes the modern internet, and Whois privacy will further enhance this experience for bloggers without the fear of being prosecuted.

Current scenario of privacy and data protection

Various countries and international organizations adapt to a privacy and data protection law that requires domain registrar’s Whois service to collect accurate personal information of a domain registrant. Furthermore, ICANN laws require that all Whois information of each domain registrant be included in a database which is accessible publicly.

When a domain is registered, the name and personal contact information (email, street address, phone contact) is freely available to the outside world at any point in time. The domain registrant has absolutely no control over who collects his/her personal information and how this information is going to be used.

Why Whois?

Many people question as to why their whole personal information is compromised for something as simple as conducting a domain registration. Following are the reasons why this information needs disclosure:

1) To gather contact information and names for marketing purposes.
2) To see the current status of a domain; whether it is registered, expiring, deleted or available for registration.
3) To help trace any source of spamming or denial of service attacks.
4) To identify the individual or organization who registered a particular domain.
5) To help technical operations of ISPs.
6) To help law enforcement agencies locate an “unethical” website.

The solution – Private Whois Service (Whois Guard)

Private Whois Service (also known as Whois Guard) makes it possible to protect one’s personal information by applying the Private Whois Service available with many mainstream domain registrars. Godaddy.com offers private Whois service for an additional fees, while Name.com and Namecheap.com offer free Whois guard with every new registration. A private Whois service shields you from spam, name hijackers, data miners, email harvesters, and identity thieves.

How does a Private Whois Service work?

Private Whois works in a similar way to having someone’s telephone number unlisted from a telephone directory thus preventing outsiders from accessing the name, address and personal contact information of the concerned person. This personal information is held confidentially by the Domain Privacy Protection Service and not exposed to any general audience.

So why we need Whois Privacy?

In summary, Private Whois works by not publicizing your important and private information. Exposed personal information, especially emails, can be harvested and stored for several years and later be used to contact you for unsolicited purposes. Under the Whois Protection, your personal information is confidential. This allows you to control how and by whom your information is used. I recommend you to apply Whois protection to all your domain registrations in order to keep your personal information private. Name.com and Namecheap.com offer this service at no additional cost to your initial registration.

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