Attention bloggers or anyone who owns a domain! Did you know that your personal information, including your address, email and phone number is potentially on the internet with your domain name information? Thankfully, there is a solution and you can choose to make this information private.
Check for your Information HERE
Before I share how to make this information private, here is some background information:
What is WHOIS?
Every year, millions of individuals, businesses, organizations and governments register domain names. Each one must provide identifying and contact information which may include: name, address, email, phone number, and administrative and technical contacts. This information is often referred to as “WHOIS data.” But the WHOIS service is not a single, centrally-operated database. Instead, the data is managed by independent entities known as “registrars” and “registries.” Any entity that wants to become a registrar must earn ICANN accreditation. Similarly, registries are under contract with ICANN to operate a generic top level domain, such as .COM, .ORG, or one of the new gTLDs such as .STORAGE and .LINK. (Reference HERE)
What Information is Available?
When you search for your Domain HERE, you may see a few things that are personal to you and also information registered to your blog’s registrar. The information of yours that you may see can be your Name, Address, Phone Number and Email.
Make Your Information Private
Many hosts offer an extra layer of “ID Protection” that will, in turn, protect your private information from WHOIS registration. Your domain will still be searchable but the personal information tagged to your listing is a proxy in another location. Before I did this, my private information was showing, and now I am tied to a proxy in Washington State. This option was an additional fee from my host but was not expensive.
If you’re interested in removing your information from WHOIS, contact whoever your domain is registered with and ask about this option.
Here is what my registration looks like after I enabled WHOIS protection:
