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Can you buy a Domain Name anonymously?
Yes, you can buy a Domain Name anonymously. Nowadays, it’s quite simple to purchase a Domain Name and keep your name out of public view.
In fact, many popular Domain Name Registrars offer “WhoIs” privacy protection. This “WhoIs Privacy Protection” is a service that basically keeps your name out of public view and only lists your Web Hosting Provider’s Name as well as your Domain Name Registrar when someone searches for your Domain Name information.
In addition, many popular Domain Name Registrars even offer “WhoIs” privacy protection for free when you purchase a Domain Name through them.
However, there is privacy and then there is “privacy”.
The problem with WhoIs privacy protection is if somebody wants to, for example, sue you, they can simply go to the Domain Name Registrar with a court order, depending on the jurisdiction, and get your personal information that way.
Although when you want to contact a Domain Name Owner WhoIs under “WhoIs Privacy Protection”, you can usually contact the Domain Name Registrar or Hosting Provider and the Registrar or Provider passes the relevant information on to you without you ever having to contact the person directly or them you directly.
But you can actually go deeper in Domain Name Registration Privacy and go very “Anonymous”.
In this post, I’m going to go through the various levels of Domain Name privacy protection and talk about how you can remain anonymous in regards to your domain name and registration.
I’m also going to attempt to answer some frequently asked questions regarding how to buy a Domain Name anonymously as well.
How to buy a Domain Name anonymously?
Njalla is a service https://njal.la/ that was created by Peter Sunde, who co-founded “The Pirate Bay” back in the day.
Unlike other Domain Name Registrars, Njalla is actually not a Domain Name Registration Service, they are a customer to them. Njalla sits in between the domain name registration service and you, acting as a privacy shield.
When you purchase a domain name through Njalla, they own it for you. However, the agreement between Njalla grants you full usage rights to the domain. Whenever you want to, you can transfer the ownership to yourself or some other party.
Then there is Orange Website. They offer Site Management through cPanel within Orange as well.
Orangewebsite also accepts BTC. The beauty of Orangewebsite is that they are based out of Iceland that has very strict privacy laws. However, they also require no personal information and lists their own company for the WhoIs information on your site.
In addition, if you’re environmentally conscious they use energy efficient servers as well since most of Iceland is powered by geothermal power.
You can also go through more traditional Domain Name Registrars as well.
Like GoDaddy, Namecheap, Hostgator or Bluehost, all offer WhoIs protection and Namecheap even accepts Bitcoin.
Can you buy a Domain anonymously with Bitcoin?
You can buy domain names with Bitcoin. These transactions are usually anonymous. However, to buy a Domain very anonymously here’s some extra precautions you can take:
- Buy some Bitcoins.
- Access blockchain.info through the Tor browser.
- Make a wallet, save all relevant info (wallet ID and password).
- Send your Bitcoins to that wallet.
- Change your Tor identity.
- Make another blockchain.info wallet. Save the information.
- Change your Tor identity again.
- Send the Bitcoins from the first wallet to the address in the second wallet through a mixing service (there’s usually a 1.5% fee).
- Change Tor identity again.
- Buy your Domain Name with the Bitcoins in the second wallet (which is not tied to you).
Can you get a free anonymous Domain Name?
For a quick ad hoc solution you can get a free domain at http://freenom.com. However, it will not be registered under your name.
You should also note though that when a domain is not registered under your name, you won’t have any ICANN protection. Therefore, you also risk losing the domain with no line of defense.
For hosting you can use GitHub Pages which is free too and requires just an email address to register.
Can you host a WordPress site, anonymously?
Orange Website not only offers complete anonymity when you want to buy a domain name and register it, it also offers to host your WordPress site anonymously as well. How?
Orange website offers offshore hosting plans that are hosted in Iceland, where online censorship is low.
Iceland is not part of the EU or USA. Iceland’s independent freedom of expression legislation guarantees publishers, journalists and bloggers a safe haven to publish their words without being harassed.
Read more about these protections from the International Modern Media Institute.
What is the difference between public and private domain registration?
A Public Domain Registration is when a domain name that is purchased from a Domain Name Registrar is registered in what’s called the WhoIs Registry or Directory.
Every domain name that is purchased and registered through ICANN is automatically put in the WhoIs Registry or Directory.
The WhoIs Directory is an open and public directory where anyone can find the information on the ownership of a website or domain name by simply looking it up.
The name, address and other information that belongs to the person who registers the domain name is entered in this “WhoIs Directory”.
This is what is otherwise referred to as a Public Domain Registration.
A Private Domain Registration is when a domain name is purchased through a Domain Name Registrar and either the Registrar or a Company representing a buyer buys the domain name from a Registrar, offers a “WhoIs Privacy Protection Service”.
If a Domain Name Registrar offers WhoIs privacy protection, then the name of the Domain Name Registrar is entered into this WhoIs directory.
A Private Company can also offer this service by buying a Domain Name for a client from a Domain Name Registrar as well. Then have their Company information entered in the WhoIs directory on behalf of their client.
This protection basically shields the person and their information from public view.
Most domain name registrars nowadays offer WhoIs privacy protection for free when you buy a domain name through their service.
Buying a Domain Name anonymously, conclusions.
As you can see, you can buy a domain name anonymously and the process can be quite easy and straightforward.
However, the degree of anonymity does vary depending on how you go about buying your domain name.
In addition, you can also host that domain name anonymously as well.
You can even buy a domain name anonymously with Bitcoin.
In fact, a surprising number of not only Domain Name Registrars, but even Web Hosting Providers nowadays accept Bitcoin as well as other cryptocurrencies and digital wallets for payment.
So you can register and operate a website anonymously nowadays, that’s practically a given. However, the degrees of anonymity are not.
