Some of you may have thought of creating your own website. Before that, you will have consulted several domain plans from different providers, and you will have asked yourself what characteristics you have to value. One of the things that, without a doubt, we should think about having, is a privacy protection of a domain to feel safe from prying eyes.
In this sense, we want our personal information as the owner of a domain to be as little exposed as possible. This data is available in the WHOIS database, which we will explain below, so that the subsequent information is more understandable.
WHOIS and its relationship with registered domains
The WHOIS database contains contact information for the registered domain owners . Sometimes, we need this data to carry out any management or consultation. One of the most common reasons to consult this database is to find out who is the owner of a domain. Thus, we could get in touch with its owner and we could ask if that domain name is for sale.
Other reasons may be uncovering false details or trademark infringements. Administrators can track websites that post illegal content and request that they be shut down. In short, thanks to this database, we will contact the owners for their sale, make inquiries or for their complaint about legal issues of illegal content, brand impersonation, etc.
What is the privacy protection of a domain
When we talk about domain privacy we are talking about a service offered by a domain name registrar. In it, the client buys privacy from the company, and the company replaces the user’s WHOIS information with information from a forwarding service for email using a proxy server.
In that sense, it is important to choose a reliable registrar before opting for a hosting plan with a free domain. It should also be noted that a hosting provider can have a good or bad reputation. However, its role as a registrar may not be good, and it does not offer privacy protection for a domain.
Therefore, when buying a domain, we must fundamentally look at two things:
- That the domain registration company has a good reputation.
- Offer a domain privacy protection service.
The purchase and privacy of a domain
The moment we decide to purchase a domain, we are required to provide the domain name registrar with our contact information. This data will be available to the general public through the WHOIS directory. It is done this way because it is established by ICANN, which is the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers . This body is the one that supervises the matters related to the domain.
When it comes to domain privacy protection, it is an additional service that many domain name registrars generally offer for an additional cost. In case of having it, our information is protected and it is not shown in the WHOIS directory. Instead, that information will be replaced by generic information from our registrar.
What advantages can domain privacy bring us
As we just mentioned before, having contracted the privacy protection of a domain our confidential data will not appear in the WHOIS directory. This will provide us with a series of very important advantages that we list below:
- It will help reduce spam in our e-mail.
- Unwanted traffic will be reduced.
- It can also reduce the chances of our domain being hijacked due to a phishing attempt.
Although it is true that we do not necessarily need to have domain privacy, we must also recognize that it offers many advantages. Obviously having our public information available to everyone can be detrimental to our privacy. Someone could discover more information through what is provided in the WHOIS directory.
Thus, by following the trail and footprint that we are leaving on the Internet, you can allow cybercriminals to perpetuate social engineering attacks against us. On the other hand, if we have domain privacy such as the data from our registrar, the task for attackers is more complicated.
How domain privacy works
Protecting the privacy of a domain consists of having your domain registrar replace your actual contact information with generic information on behalf of the registrar.
Another good thing about domain privacy also helps prevent identity theft. If a third party wants to communicate with us, it will be through the domain registrar, and their contact information will also not be disclosed to them.
But it also offers a way to hide your website from the competition, prevent your information from being sold to others, and control the information that is displayed online about us.
What information ICANN needs
The ICANN we talked about earlier is a high-level, non-profit authority that oversees domain registration. Every time a domain is bought or sold, the information is inserted into a domain record. This corporation manages and maintains the registry of domain names and those in charge of making the sales are the registrars. In case a company wants to become a domain name registrar, it needs to obtain a certification from ICANN.
Therefore, having an ICANN certification is very important, as the name of your website will not be able to be registered in the WHOIS database unless we do it from a certified domain registrar.
Another relevant thing is that if ICANN detects that false data has been provided for the registry, it can close your domain.
The information that we normally need to provide to register your domain are name and surname, telephone number, physical address and email. ICANN needs this information to be able to verify that we actually bought a domain name.
What work do domain registrars do?
The first thing to comment is that, to become a domain name registrar, a company must obtain a certification from ICANN. Once we have obtained this certificate, then we will be able to sell the domain names as a registrar.
Public domain registrars offer different extensions such as .com , .org or country-specific extensions such as for Spain .es . In the case of wanting to buy a domain of a specific class, we will have to look for a registrar that deals with that extension. Any other that works with other different extensions is not worth it.
In addition, domain registrars usually offer other services such as:
- Web hosting on their servers.
- Privacy protection of a domain.
- Domain transfers.
- Website creation.
Final thoughts on domain privacy
As we have seen throughout this tutorial, we can have a domain without having to compromise our privacy. If we want to obtain it, in addition to registering our domain we also need privacy protection of a domain. The advantages, as you have seen, are many.
However, it should be noted that it is not mandatory to have privacy in our domain, but it is very positive to have it. The main advantage is that it hides our information so that it is not shown in the WHOIS database. In return, it uses the information from our registrar to keep the information secure and avoid spam, phishing and many other problems.