Domain Privacy Explained

Every time you register a domain name, contact details are attached to it, and publicly available on WHOIS database listings. HostUpon and many other domain registrars provide a “domain privacy” service for a small fee ($9.95 per year). The service will protect your information and keep your personal contact details safe.

Domain Privacy is completely optional, and not required, but there’s many reasons why it may be worth the small annual fee:

• Domain Privacy controls spam and junk mail you’ll receive in your email inbox and mailbox!
• Hides your website from competitors searching your name or personal information online
• Prevents companies from recording your contact details to resell
• Avoid spam and fraudulent business email (such as false domain submission / SEO services)
• Control your privacy!

The WHOIS database is searchable by domain, email address, and sometimes other details like phone numbers matching a domain name. Domain registrars are required to have valid mailing address, phone number, and email address so if you use fake details, you risk losing ownership of your domain! Most protection services will still forward any emails they receive to your unique domain protection address to you.

This database is available to everyone on the Internet and easily accessible. If you don’t want the whole world knowing your address, phone number, real name, etc, you won’t want your information on the WHOIS database.

Note: Some domains are NOT eligible for WHOIS protection, such as .ca, .us and .co.uk. Check with your registrar for more information.

How To Check WHOIS database

One of the most popular sites to check the WHOIS database is domaintools.com.  It allows you to search any domain and will display the relevant ownership information.  If a domain has privacy protection you’ll clearly see that under the contact details section.

Domain Tools will also show the domain registration date, last renewal date and expiration date.  It’s a great free tool to check the details of any domain including which domain registrar the domain was registered through.

If you want to hide your WHOIS details then for a small annual fee you can add domain privacy to keep your personal information hidden from WHOIS lookups.

HostUpon offers Domain Whois Privacy for $9.95/year.