What are the Benefits of Using Whois Privacy for your Domains?
Privacy protection is a topic you often hear about in relation to social media outlets and user generated content in general. Not so much in the domain arena. When registering a new domain, you usually have the option (at a small extra cost) of Whois privacy. If you opt for it, your personal information and contact details are replaced by your service provider’s. Whois privacy has benefits which are worth considering and here is why.
Privacy of Personal Data and Contact Details
When a new domain name is registered with an ICANN-accredited registrar or national registry (depending on the domain extension), its Whois record should be created as well. The Whois record of any domain contains domain and owner information such as: domain status, domain registration and expiry dates, nameservers, owner names, physical address, email address, phone number, contact person, etc. The Whois database is publicly available, ie a quick Whois lookup puts all your personal data at the fingertips of anyone.
Less Spam
This can be an open invitation to spammers and scammers and before you know it, your inbox may be flooded with spam. Or your email address may be harvested for phishing attacks, for example. Cybercrime statics tell us that even though the total volume of spam emails is lower now, there are actually more spam emails passing through email security because of the better technology that generate them.
Having your email address publicly accessible may be an unnecessary risk.
Less Identity Theft
Identity theft is also widespread since ID data is a sought-after commodity in the shadow economy. They are used in further cybercrimes such as credit card fraud, ransomware attacks, etc. Concealing your Whois data may reduce exposure to such threats.
Protecting your Physical Location
Apart from cybersecurity, physical privacy may also become an issue, especially if you’re a home based entrepreneur. You wouldn’t like strangers riled by your latest blog posts or claiming clash of interests, or even overzealous supporters showing up at your doorstep. That’s why masking your physical location definitely has its advantages.
Better Management of Contact Information and Feedback
From a practical point of view, it is much easier to have users contact you through the website contact page. That way you know the contact details you provided are designated only to that business and separate from all your other contact information.
Privacy of Ownership
Keeping owner information private has another plus as well. For various reasons, you may choose not to associate your personal information with the domain when it is registered and with Whois privacy you can do just that.
It’s All about Cybersecurity
All in all, the sophistication of technologies means sophistication of cybercrime as well so cybersecurity is never too much. Going for Whois privacy can add to your online protection.