One thing a lot of webmasters commonly want to know is whether or not they need domain privacy protection for their website. A lot popular registrars/hosts like GoDaddy, NameCheap, Network Solutions, Hostgator, 1and1, etc. offer this service for a monthly or yearly fee. Typically, it can cost you anywhere from $2.99 to $7.99 per year. In this article, I am going to explain what domain privacy protection is and show you the pros and cons of using it. Then, it’s up to you to decide if you want it or not.
Pros
- Minimize spam.
- Protects your personal information.
- Prevents unsolicited marketing outreach.
- Protection against domain name hijacking.
Cons
- An extra yearly expense.
- What Is Domain Privacy Protection
So, if you are completely new to owning and running a website you have probably seen the word privacy protection offered. When you go to DomainTools and Whois.net, you can check to see who owns the domain name. You can see where it’s registered and with what company it’s registered. Shows your personal home address (or registered address), phone number, email address, etc. Is an online database that anyone and everyone can view publicly.
Protection vs. No Protection
Above is what it looks like if you have no protection. As you can clearly see, this shows all of your personal information. Can leave you wide open for spam, unsolicited marketing contacts, and even allow your domain name to get hijacked.
Above is what it looks like when you have protection. You can see that your domain name, address, email, phone number, etc. is all hidden behind a proxy. Typically, the words “Domains by Proxy, Inc” are the owner, which isn’t your real information. Makes it a lot harder for people to reach out to you by looking through your information. You are paying to mask your identity.
Below are a couple of options that I have seen other webmasters use to get around using privacy protection.
Provide A Fake Address
So could you just give them a fake address? No, there are strict guidelines set by ICANN which could shut your website down if you choose to provide a fake address. Is a direct violation of ICANN’s TOS, and it’s not a path I recommend going down.
P.O. Box Address
What about setting up a P.O. box and registering that address. Is a costly move because of a P.O. box will usually cost you $14 for three months (depending on your location). Would make your P.O. Box cost nearly $60 per year.
My Advice On Domain Privacy Protection
If you’re working on a very tight budget, I would recommend not signing up for privacy protection until you start generating more income when you can later afford it. You could end up getting spammed by unethical marketing companies but just keep in mind that you don’t have to respond to any offer (calls or emails) that you don’t want to answer. Instead, you can block their telephone number or email address. Additionally, you can provide them with an email account that you don’t check that much; therefore you don’t see all the spam.
However, if you have the money I would recommend signing up for privacy protection. As I mentioned above, it’s usually going to cost $2.99 to $7.99 a year depending on what registrar you use. A lot of companies will give you domain privacy protection for free for the first year, but make sure you cancel it the next year if you don’t want to pay for it. Will typically be a small business expense that will save you lots of time dealing with unsolicited spam.
For me, it’s worth it to use privacy protection otherwise my cell phone would ring all day long with sales calls. If you are not using domain privacy right now and are getting spammed, I would highly recommend purchasing it. I didn’t use it for three years, but finally got sick and tired of the spam I received. Also, your email spam will be greatly reduced if you have privacy protection.
Personally, I buy all my domain names with NameCheap and then host them with InMotion. Domain names are much cheaper with NameCheap and InMotion is a very quality web hosting company that I have used for several years now.
TBWHS.com is hosted by GreenGeeks
I can say that I have signed up for privacy protection and it worth the small price tag that comes with it. Otherwise you’re leaving yourself wide open for email spam. This is a big problem I have had to deal with over the years. It went away shortly after I made my domain names private.
Yeah, I can relate to that. The sad part is without it phone seems to ring off the hook. Get sales call all day. It is very annoying!
What if you sign up for private domain names and the spam doesn’t stop with your email; is there any thing you can do about it?
You can use Spam Assassin. It’s a feature in cPanel that helps reduce the amount of spam. https://spamassassin.apache.org/
Another good practice is to change your MX records to your email address. This reduces the workload on your servers. I have written about it here: https://blog.tbwhs.com/changing-mx-records-to-gmail-and-yahoo/
I do like how 1and1 gives you free domain privacy for the life of your account. It’s really a great added perk to using them.
Thank for stopping by and leaving your feedback on 1and1. I have actually written an article which does review 1and1 for buying domain names https://tbwhs.com/blog/1and1-domain-review/
I’m glad you’re happy with them, though.
What is domain hijacking? I am guessing it is where someone steals your domain name. How exactly does it happen?
Ok, domain highjacking is simply this. Someone steals your domain. Basically, it’s theft and actually happens more often than you think.
Someone steals the information to your control panel. The hacker changes your DNS in your control panel to another server. Now, when they access your site, it shows whatever content they pointed your DNS too.
People can get some of your information from WHOIS. They will look for your administrative email. Then, the hacker says he forgot the password. They send a new password. Then the hacker does their DNS change.
This is one reason it’s so important to have domain privacy protection.
Is it true that if you use make a domain private that you don’t actually own it. I read somewhere that it’s now the property of ICANN or the registrar?
I am really not sure about the legal system for domain names. I have never had to go to court about it. I did read this article on https://www.easydns.com/10-things-to-know-before-you-register/ (Part 5) which basically states that you don’t own the domain name if you use domain privacy. Since, I am not sure about this I got on NameCheap’s live chat and asked them about it. Here is what I was told:
If you are referring to p.5 of the article, that’s not quite true. You remain domain’s owner as long as the domain is renewed whether Whois privacy is turned on or off. The decision of whether to use it is up to you.
Possibly someone from EasyDNS could stop by and leave a comment to clarify since they were the author of the article.
easyDNS only masks the public facing whois data. The actual registrants data is what is sent to the registry.. not that of the whois privacy information.
thanks for sharing 🙂
Hi Garen,
Thanks for a really informative and interesting post. I must admit, having set up a few websites recently, I have overlooked domaim privacy and didn’t really consider it. The biggest challenge is, when you have a limited budget, finding cash for various extra expenses – I will be sure to look at this once my cash flow is slightly healthier.
Cheers,
Mike
Hey Mike,
Sounds like a good plan. Especially if your on a limited budget. Could always disregard it until you get tired of the spam.
A very informative article on domain name protection and you present a very thorough and detailed perspective. One thing I’m curious about though, and hope you might be able to answer for me is this: why are so many people concerned about privacy these days? I mean, what’s to really hide that we need all this protection?
Is not so much the privacy that we need. Really, don’t mind my address being online, my telephone number, etc. It’s just the fact that I don’t like dealing with unwanted solicitation. Like a lot of people, it isn’t an issue until your website becomes successful.
I have Privacy Protection on 4 of my domains and as you said, it’s worth the extra cost. I’ll look at making my other domains private, if and when I need to.
Thanks for the information.
Good to see that you’re using privacy protection. I wish I could stop getting SEO companies contacting me via my contact us page. Really does get old getting all these SEO proposals.
I didnt read this at first. I signed up with Bluehost two days ago and waited one day before purchasing the privacy protection. I’ve gotten a lot of phone calls from all around the world. It’s hard to work and stay focused when my phone keeps ringning. My email box is full of junk. Do they sell the infos?
Here a part of one discussion I found regarding:
“The reason for this is because according to ICANN, whoever is listed as the Whois registrant becomes the rightful owner. When Whois Privacy is enabled, your registrar uses their own business information as Whois info.”
My renewal on GoDaddy is about to happen and the protection is $59.98 for 2 years. I would be happy if it was under $10 a year, but I’m looking at $30.