Whois Ownership | Whois Privacy | Whois Search | Move Domain to New Owner
Domain registrations require you to list valid and real ownership information in the public whois record.
ICANN / Registry Policy
For most domain extensions such as .com, .net, .org, etc., the domain owner is required to be listed in the public whois record due to ICANN and domain registry policies. There is ongoing work to reform whois policy and add real privacy protection for domain owners that maintains their ownership and other rights. We are following the work being done and will provide support for real whois privacy once it is officially offered by ICANN policy.
Some registries (.ca and .uk) already offer built-in whois privacy features to protect whois information for certain individual (non-company) domain owners.
Use Alternate Contact Information
If whois privacy is an immediate concern, you can consider listing alternate (but real and accurate) contact information. The responsible party or domain owner must be reachable via the whois contact information or they risk losing their domain due to inaccurate whois information.
Email
You must be able to receive official emails sent to your whois contacts. You could create an email forwarding address that forwards to your main email so you can track whois related email. Our Essentials provides an unlimited number of email forwarding addresses.
Phone
List a work number, a voicemail number (e.g., Google Voice), or another number where you can be reached.
Address
List a business address, mail forwarding address, or PO Box on your whois record. PO Boxes are designed for privacy and are available in most countries. Links have been included for some regions below:
United States
Canada
United Kingdom
Downsides of Existing Privacy Services
Some companies offer their own unauthorized whois privacy services at an additional cost. You should be careful of these. The best solution is to wait for real whois privacy policy change at ICANN. They are not regulated and come with many downsides:
Loss of Ownership
Legally, the whois record lists the domain owner. Because whois privacy is not regulated, companies that provide whois privacy services have to list either their own or generic information within the whois. This removes you as the owner of the domain. You risk losing the domain in case of a domain dispute because you are not officially listed as the owner. You also risk the domain going offline if you're unable to be reached via your whois contact information.
False Sense of Privacy
Whois privacy services are not that "private" and can provide a false sense of security. These services can easily release your actual contact information since legally they are listed as the domain owner and won't want to take on liability due to activity on your website.
Poor Search Engine Rankings
Whois privacy can have a negative impact on search result rankings.