Domain Privacy, ICANN, and Public WHOIS Data

Domain privacy is a sensitive subject and one not many customers are well informed about. Over 30 years ago, the Internet Engineering Task Force published a protocol for a directory service for ARPANET users. Essentially, this WHOIS directory service listed contact information for anyone transmitting data across the ARPANET, which eventually became what we now know as the Internet. Over the years many more people, government agencies, and businesses came to rely on this information. In 1998 the same WHOIS protocol was adopted when the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) was formed.

ICANN is a non-profit organization who governs or in other words, helps coordinate the Domain Name System (DNS) with appropriate IP address numbers at a global level. When an individual, business, organization, or government registers a domain name that party must provide identifying and contact information for that domain name. This information includes name, address, email, phone number and other administrative or technical contacts. The information associated to a domain name is referred to as WHOIS data. ICANN’s Affirmation of Commitments requires it to “implement measures to maintain timely, unrestricted and public access to accurate and complete WHOIS information…”[1]

Anyone can use the WHOIS protocol to search the public database and identify the registrant of a particular domain name. Despite what many people think, having this information available to the public is a good thing. This is how domain registrants are held accountable for a domain and the contents published on that domain. However, over the years the public information listed in the WHOIS database has been abused by identify thieves and spammers to solicit registrants through email and phone calls.

What information is public?

A registrant’s details are made public for the domain’s public WHOIS if there is no domain privacy (ID Protection), which includes the following; full name, full address, phone number, and email address.

Your Information IS NOT Shared to Third-Parties

Unfortunately, many web hosting providers and domain registrars are wrongfully accused of sharing, selling, or renting domain registrant’s information. When a customer registers a new domain without privacy (ID Protection) and starts to receive spam or unsolicited phone calls, it gives the perception that the Web Hosting Provider or Domain Registrar is selling off their information to third-parties, which is very unlikely and far from the truth.

There is absolutely no way for web hosting providers and domain registrars to stop or control the activities of these spammers completely. PeoplesHost, as well as our competitors, typically offer privacy as an option for all newly registered and existing domain registrations; most commonly referred to as ID Protection, Domain Privacy, or Private Domain Registration. Domain Privacy can usually be purchased anywhere from $7-$15/yr for a single domain depending on who you have registered your domain with. When Domain Privacy is purchased it masks your information from the public WHOIS database that spammers scrape, keeping your personal information safe from their grasp.

When you protect your information with a domain privacy product, known as ID Protection here at PeoplesHost, it will prevent your personal information from 1) getting scraped by spammers and 2) indexed by other WHOIS search engines/sites.

We understand this may be a frustrating experience if you have recently registered a new domain without ID Protection. Though, we do hope you fully understand what is happening and that the WHOIS database was never intended or designed for this type of abuse. There are many deficiencies in the current form of the system in place. Since 2012, ICANN has been studying proposals and has been in the process of re-inventing the WHOIS system.