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What is domain privacy protection and do I need it?
Yes! Domain Privacy Protection is a service offered by Domain Name Registrars to basically protect website owners and their administrators privacy by concealing their personal details from the public on the open web. By getting domain privacy protection you will help ensure that all personal information is hidden from the public and is kept private.
Best of all you can usually get the most common form of Domain Privacy Protection is called “Whois” Privacy Protection for free nowadays when you register your domain name with many Domain Name Registrars, like Namecheap and GoDaddy, to name two.
These are the main reasons why you need Domain Privacy Protection:
- Protects you from Identity theft.
- Protects you from spam.
- Helps protect you from cyber-attacks and data breaches.
- Prevents your contact and personal information from being distributed online.
- If you run a home-based business, domain privacy protection will shield your home address.
In this post, we are going to go over what is Domain Name Privacy Protection and why you really need it.
We will also go over stronger domain name privacy protections you may want to take and how to get them.
First, today, most domain registrars actually do offer “Whois” Domain Privacy Protection and at no extra cost. In other words, they now provide, “Whois” Domain Privacy Protection for free!
But is “Whois” privacy protection enough nowadays? That is the real question. If not, then what more can you do to ensure you get the domain privacy protection you need? Let’s start with what you now get as “Standard” in today’s “Whois” Domain Privacy Protection.
What more can the “Standard” “Whois” domain privacy protection do for you?
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) currently requires the email addresses, phone numbers, and even mailing addresses of all the owners and administrators of domains to be publicly available.
If you own a website, then that means your personal information must be made public on WHOIS directories. Any of this personal information can be available to anyone who queries a “WHOIS” server; this policy grants access even to identity thieves, spammers, and any other attackers.
Therefore, in recent years “Whois” Domain Privacy Protection has become practically standard for most Domain Name Registrars. Most even offer it free nowadays as standard when you purchase your Domain Name through the particular Registrar.
This “Whois” privacy protection helps their customers protect their personal information from being openly displayed on the internet. These privacy services are responsible for protecting your information and redirecting WHOIS queries elsewhere.
Is the Standard “Whois” Domain Privacy Protection enough? Points to consider:
- When registering the domain, the only information that is critical to the actual working of the domain is the email address. The rest, even though it is required, is not validated. The only way you will have to update the rest of the information is if someone reports to ICANN that the information is incorrect.
- After GDPR was enacted, it has become even more difficult to find the ownership information of domains even if you choose not to have “Whois” privacy protection enabled on your domain.
- In case of disputes, like court cases, DMCA Takedown Notices, even accusations of wrongdoing, etc. the registrar will have to reveal the details of domain ownership, irrespective of your Domain’s “Whois” privacy protection status.
Although for the majority of website owners, “Standard Whois” Domain Privacy Protection is enough to protect their websites as well as keep their personal details safe and protected, it still may not be enough.
It’s the 3rd point that should be of concern to most who truly need domain privacy protection.
For extra Domain Privacy Protection, go Offshore with an Anonymous Domain Registration and a cTLD.
When you go “Offshore” with an anonymous domain registration service all your domains are registered outside of the USA and EU and other intelligence sharing and jurisdictional cooperation countries and supranational bodies like the “5 eyes”, “9 eyes” or “14 eyes” organizations as well as the MLAT treaty.
By going “Offshore” in a country like Iceland, a company like Orangewebsite can offer you extended privacy and low online censorship by registering all the domains in an offshore location, outside of the USA or European Union.
Orangewebsite also has billing systems where you can take advantage of their two-factor authentication and other advanced security features. All with complete anonymity. And it doesn’t stop there.
Why get a cTLD for Domain Privacy Protection?
By getting an Icelandic .IS “country Top Level Domains (cTLD)” you will benefit from having your domain registry in Iceland instead of the EU or the USA.
By registering your domain in Iceland you will be fully protected by Icelandic laws and privacy protection. Iceland is also a well known safe haven for journalists and publishers by protecting their freedom of speech, which is enshrined in its Constitution, its modern media laws legislation and amendments.
Paying for your cTLD Domain Privacy Protection anonymously.
Paying for your cTLD domain privacy protection anonymously with Bitcoin is pretty straight forward. You can either buy Bitcoin through a cryptocurrency broker or dealer.
If you’re not comfortable buying Bitcoin through a cryptocurrency dealer or broker, you can buy Bitcoin through your PayPal account.
Once you buy the Bitcoin, you could use it for whatever you like and that purchase with the Bitcoin is anonymous.
In fact, Orangewebsite not only accepts Bitcoin, but also traditional forms of payment like credit cards, bank transfers, PayPal. They’ll even accept cash sent by mail.
Anonymous Domain Privacy Protection is not enough, you need Anonymous Hosting as well.
If you think by simply getting “Whois” domain privacy protection or even if you go the extra step of getting anonymous domain privacy protection through a TLD from an offshore country like Iceland will ensure total privacy protection, think again.
Regardless of where and how you buy your domain name, if someone wants to find the true owner of any domain they can simply trace where that domain is hosted.
The Web Hosting Provider where that domain is hosted will have to not only give up ownership information for that hosting customer, they will also have to give up the registrar’s name.
Therefore, even if the domain name is protected with “Whois” privacy protection, the registrar would still have to give up ownership details if requested.
So, the only true way to protect your domain name privacy is by not only getting a cTLD through an Offshore Registrar, but also getting that anonymous domain name hosted from an Offshore Web Hosting Provider as well.
This way you can ensure that not only is your domain name kept anonymous, but that any court order, DMCA inquiry or takedown notice can’t be used to get any of that information as well.
What is domain privacy protection and do I need it? Conclusions.
For the majority of website owners “Whois” privacy protection is more than enough to protect your domain name and your personal information used to register it from nefarious characters.
However, the best way to ensure domain name privacy protection, if you need it, is by registering an Offshore cTLD anonymously as well as Hosting that domain name with an Offshore Web Hosting Provider. Preferably one that can do both, like Orangewebsite based in Iceland.
