Whois privacy

A major issue with registering a domain name is that your contact details (or those of your customer) are supposed to be true and valid contact details in order to fulfill the requirements of your registry's Registration Agreement, and those details must be published in the Whois database which is, as you now know, publicly accessible.

What on earth is a Whois?

My estimation is that the majority of internet users, even the majority of domain name registrants have no idea that the Whois database exists, let alone publishes their contact data for all to see. Sure, you may know that but the thing is, a lot of your customers may not.

The problem is that spammers, advertisers, and marketers mine the Whois database and extract data from it, so before you know it you are getting various emails, marketing pitches, and junk faxes all because of the information you had to supply when you registered the domain name.

To mitigate this, Registrars invented Whois privacy. Whois privacy hides your Registrant contact details from public view. Since it is against the rules of nearly any registry to supply false data in a domain name registration, Registrars responded by creating actual corporate entities that would act as the Registrant for your domain in your place. When somebody looks up the Whois record for a domain name, they would see the contact details for some privacy-providing entity or other suitable proxy, as shown here:

$ whois antiguru.com
Domain Name: ANTIGURU.COM
Registry Domain ID: 1549312202_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.easydns.com
Registrar URL: http://www.easydns.com
Updated Date: 2014-03-24 10:00:05
Creation Date: 2009-03-25 19:05:18
Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2015-03-25 19:05:18
Registrar: easyDNS Technologies, Inc.
Registrar IANA ID: 469
Registrar Abuse Contact Email: abuse@easydns.com
Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: +1.4165358672 Domain
Status: clientTransferProhibited
Domain Status: clientUpdateProhibited
Registry Registrant ID:
Registrant Name: Contact Privacy
Registrant Organization: MyPrivacy.net Ltd.
Registrant Street: 300A-219 Dufferin St.
Registrant City: Toronto
Registrant State/Province: ON Registrant Postal Code: M6K 3J1
Registrant Country: CA Registrant Phone: +1.6474785997
Registrant Phone Ext: Registrant Fax:
Registrant Fax Ext:
Registrant Email: antiguru.com@myprivacy.net
Registry Admin ID:
Admin Name: Contact Privacy
Admin Organization: MyPrivacy.net Ltd.
Admin Street: 300A-219 Dufferin St.
Admin City: Toronto
Admin State/Province: ON
Admin Postal Code: M6K 3J1
Admin Country: CA
Admin Phone: +1.6474785997

This accomplishes what it set out to do, and it masks your Whois data and your private contact details from marketers and spammers. But... it comes with associated risks that you need to be aware of.

Most importantly, when you use Whois privacy, the actual owner or rights holder for your domain name is the privacy entity that is listed in the Whois record for your domain.

In practical terms, there is usually a secondary agreement between you and that privacy entity that presumably upholds your rights to the domain name. But in the event of a dispute or lost contact details or a lockout situation, it is the privacy entity that owns or holds all the rights to your domain names, not you.

ICANN-accredited Registrars are contractually obligated to escrow their Whois data with an escrow provider to safeguard against business failure on the part of the Registrar. If Whois privacy is enabled, then they are required to escrow the underlying Registrant details. Whether that actually happens in every case is something you would only find out after the fact, in the event of a catastrophic failure on the part of a Registrar.