Private domain registration

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Contents
1 What is private domain registration?
2 How private domain registration works
3 Advantages of private domain registration
4 Disadvantages of private domain registration

1.What is private domain registration?
Private domain name registration — also called whois protection, domain name protection, privacy protected domains, domain privacy, or private whois, among other terms — is having your name, mailing address, and contact information for your domain name hidden from public view. Without private domain registration, anyone who looks up your domain name can see the personal information you provided when you registered the domain (the whois record).

2. How private domain registration works
ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) requires domain registrants to provide accurate personal information: name or company name, mailing address, phone number, and email address. This information becomes viewable and searchable online unless the domain is privacy protected.

By choosing private domain registration, the name, address, and contact details for the company providing the privacy protection service will appear in the whois record for your domain. This company will have your whois details, which you can still update at any time. Depending on the company, you may need to pay an annual fee for domain privacy protection, or it may be a free option with your domain registration.

3. Advantages of private domain registration
You won't receive spam as a result of spambots being able to harvest your email address from your public whois record.
Telemarketers won't be able to add your phone number from your whois records to their lists.
You can keep your name, contact information, and location private from everyone.
Of course, if all the information in your domain registration record is also at your website, then using private domain registration serves no purpose.

4. Disadvantages of private domain registration
Some people see businesses with private domain registration as less reputable because they've made an effort to hide information. If the domain is for a commercial site, you could lose business because of your domain being privacy protected.
For legal purposes, a privacy-protected domain may be seen as the property of the company providing the private domain registration service. This has led to legal problems on occasion.
People who need to contact you when your site is down won't be able to use your whois details to contact you.
If your whois details were ever not privacy protected, the historical records are still viewable to people who use a paid DomainTools membership for domain history records.
Some ad networks need evidence that the domain you want to advertise with is registered to you, and having private domain registration blocks the main way to identify the domain as yours.
If you transfer the domain to someone else, you might need to remove the privacy protection to do the transfer.