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Registered a Domain Name for Your Personal Website? Your Privacy Is At Risk!
Did you know if you purchase a domain name your personal information is publically available for free online? With a simple tool available at https://whois.icann.org/en anyone is able to look up the personal information linked to your account, usually your billing address.
A lookup will look something like this:
Showing results for VELNIKOLIC.com
Original Query: velnikolic.com
Contact Information
Registrant Contact
Name: Velibor Nikolic
Organization: Your Company Name
Mailing Address: 1337 N. FAKE, CHICAGO ILLINOIS 606660 US
Phone: +1.7737737733
Ext:
Fax:
Fax Ext:WHY IS MY PERSONAL INFORMATION PUBLISHED WHEN PURCHASING A DOMAIN NAME?
It’s in the name of the tool used to look up your information, WHOIS. The information is tied to the person who is responsible for the domain. Your information is collected to hold you responsible for your website, should you chose to serve malicious content.
Why is it public? Before the Internet, there was something called the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET), and it was used to share scientific papers and studies between academia. A directory service was developed to allow users of the service to be able to look up each others contact information easily. This allowed Dr.Joe to be able to easily contact the author of a paper he had a question about. This directory eventually became what we know as WHOIS and as the Internet was born this service was expanded to all of its adopters which eventually became EVERYONE. So the directory more or less serves its initial purpose, but it was not until recently where privacy concerns were considered.
HOW DO I MAKE MY WHOIS LOOKUP PRIVATE?
So how do you make your information private? Your domain registrar (aka the company you paid your domain for) should offer instructions on how to make your information private. Basically you pay $10 a year for them to hide your information. Here are some links on how to do so with some popular services do-it-yourselfers might use.
https://support.squarespace.com/hc/en-us/articles/206542087-Managing-domain-contact-information
https://www.godaddy.com/help/add-private-registration-420
https://support.wix.com/en/article/activating-private-registration-on-whois-for-a-wix-domainAfter your purchase domain name privacy your WHOIS look up will look like this:
Showing results for: VELNIKOLIC.COM
Original Query: velnikolic.com
Contact Information
Registrant Contact
Name: Registration Private
Organization: Domains By Proxy, LLC
Mailing Address:DomainsByProxy.com, Scottsdale Arizona 85260 US
Phone: +1.4806242599
Ext:
Fax: +1.4806242598
Fax Ext:
Email:VELNIKOLIC.COM@domainsbyproxy.comBUT I DON’T WANT TO PAY
Fair enough, no one is going to force you to shell out $10 dollars for privacy. If you have a business address, there is no real reason to. You can also put in fake information, however if a dispute arises, or your domain name is hijacked it would be very hard to prove to ICANN, the company who coordinates domain names across the world, that you own the domain if you have fake information on there which might mean you lose access to it.
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