You can get a domain without compromising on privacy protection. Here’s why you need to protect your privacy as a domain owner.
You’re contemplating on creating a website. You’ve stumbled across various domain plans and wonder what the most significant difference between them is? Here’s what you should know about buying a domain name and why its privacy protection is so important.
You’ll want to have domain privacy for starters, which is often overlooked but definitely very important. Some of its key benefits include:
- It helps reduce spam.
- Decreases unwanted traffic.
- Taking care of privacy can both reduce the chances of the domain being hijacked.
Therefore, it’s essential to choose a trusted registrar and check before you’re opting for a hosting plan with a free domain. A hosting provider might be reputable, but their function as a registrar might not be. buying affordable domains from a reliable hosting company that offers great and thorough privacy protection, given its price.
Let’s take a closer look at what exactly is website name privacy, how it can impact you, and what you should know about it.
What Is Domain Privacy
Every website or domain name you buy will require you to put your contact information with the registrar you’re buying it from. The data will then be available for the public through the WHOIS directory. It’s a requirement from ICANN as they are the body that oversees domain-related matters.
Domain privacy is essentially an additional service that is usually offered by many domain name registrars. Using it; your information is protected and not displayed on the WHOIS directory, but instead, replaced by generic registrar information.
You can’t be forced to have domain privacy, but it does provide plenty of benefits. Having your information publicly available can be detrimental to your privacy. Someone might be able to uncover more information through what’s provided on the side, following the trail of breadcrumbs. This can allow attackers or stalkers to carry out social engineering attacks against you.
What Does Domain Privacy Actually Do
As mentioned above, domain privacy is merely having your registrar replace your actual contact information with generic info on behalf of the registrar. This effectively hides who the domain owner is unless you have it stated on the website itself.
See: Why typosquatting protection from coronavirus-themed registered domains is a must
Hence, you get complete control and ownership of your website name. Domain privacy also helps to prevent your identity from being stolen. Third parties can still contact you, though it will be through the domain registrar, and your contact information won’t be revealed to them.
Not only that but having domain privacy can also help:
- Mask your website from competitors
- Prevents your information from being sold to others
- Stops scammers and fraudsters from contacting you
- Control what information you show online.
Important Things to Note
It’s good to understand a few things to help you protect yourself and choose the right registrar.
Why You Need To Provide Actual Information
Now you might think that you can get away with writing fake contact details in the WHOIS directory.
In reality, you can’t do that because most, maybe all, registrars have a policy, which basically states that they will use the same information you provided in the directory with your billing information. Furthermore, if caught providing fake details, ICANN can shut down your domain.
The information that is you usually need to fill up when registering your domain is:
- First and last name
- Phone number
- Physical address
- Email address
Yes, it is hidden from the public, but ICANN needs this information to verify that you actually buy or use a domain name.
What Registrars Do
Domain registrars are the ones that can sell domain names to the public. They offer different extensions like .com, .org or country-specific extensions like .in, .au. If you want to buy a .com extension, then you’ll need to find a registrar that deals with the extension.
They also provide some other related services. Some provide hosting services, so you can directly buy and use the domain name in a website through their servers. Other benefits include domain privacy, domain transfer, website building.
Why ICAAN Certification Is Important
ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) is a top-level nonprofit authority that oversees domain registration. Domain names are inserted in a domain registry. The registry manages and maintains names and leaves the sales of it to registrars.
To become a domain name registrar, a firm needs to get certification from ICANN to be considered valid. Once they get the certificate, only then they can sell the domain names as a registrar.
Therefore, having an ICANN certification is crucial because your website name can not be registered in the WHOIS database if you don’t get it through a certified domain registrar.
What’s a WHOIS Database
The WHOIS database contains contact information for all registered domains. The database can be used for various reasons. For the average user, like you and I, we will usually go to the database to see who owns the domain name that you want to have and probably see if we can contact them to ask whether the domain name is for sale.
See: How to Tell if a Website Has Been Compromised
Network administrators can use the database to identify and fix various issues, such as finding out fake details or trademark infringement. Administrators can track down websites that post illegal content and shut them down.
Conclusion
You can get a domain without compromising on privacy protection. Most domain name registrars usually have additional benefits that you can get as you buy domains from them. One of them is getting domain privacy.
It’s not compulsory to have domain privacy, but it is a great thing to have. One of the key benefits is that it hides your information from being displayed on the WHOIS database and instead uses your registrar’s information to keep your info safe for various reasons.
You should keep in mind the things I mentioned above, like:
- Why you need to provide actual information
- What registrars do
- Why ICANN certification is important
- What’s a WHOIS database.
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