There are plenty of reasons why you wouldn’t want your personal details to be made publicly available online. Most of us know that we should manage the security settings on our various online profiles to ensure our private information is protected due to the threats of fraud and identity theft. If you have registered a domain, WHOIS privacy becomes a necessary part of online security.
Part of managing your online identity and personal information means being able to control how much of your personal information is being shared as a domain owner. Enabling WHOIS privacy on your domain allows you to ensure the security of your contact details.
Who Can See My Information?
Every time you register a domain name, you’ll be asked to provide up-to-date contact information. This is part of a policy established by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the organization that coordinates the world’s domains system. Your information is then stored in a WHOIS database, which can be easily searched and accessed by anyone with an Internet connection. That means anyone including spammers, marketers, identity thieves, and high school ex-girlfriends can find your personal information.
What Information Will They See?
A quick WHOIS lookup will provide your personal name and contact details. For example, without WHOIS privacy protection a search for www.awesomelawncare.com would look something like this:
Smith, Chris
info@awesomelawncare.com
1234 Main Street
Beverly Hills 90210
+1.424-555-5555
How Do I Protect My Personal Information?
By incorporating WHOIS privacy protection, you’re able to keep your private information from being published. When you try the same WHOIS lookup as above for a private domain, the search will either offer no information or come back with something like this:
Contactprivacy.com
awesomelawncare.com@contactprivacy.com
96 Mowat Ave
Toronto, ON M6K 3M1
CA
+1.4165385457
Instead of your personal details, the search returns the details of your domain registrar and a way to contact you that does not reveal your personal contact informatin.
Free WHOIS Privacy Protection from Hover
At Hover, we think you should be in control of how much of your personal information is shared online, and we’re not going to make you jump through hoops to do it. That’s why we include WHOIS privacy protection at no extra charge with every domain registered at Hover. With WHOIS privacy protection included with your domain purchase, your private information will remain just that—private. It’s a great way to reduce spam and protect yourself from unwanted solicitations.
You can get WHOIS privacy protection for most top-level domains (TLDs). Unfortunately, there are a few TLDs that don’t support private registration; since this is decided by the individual TLD registries, this can’t be changed by us.
If your TLD supports private registration, WHOIS privacy protection will already be enabled when you register a domain with Hover. If you want to make changes, adjusting your WHOIS settings is as simple as pressing a button. The Hover Help Center has a great article on how to activate WHOIS privacy and is always ready to assist.
