When you register a domain, you are required by ICANN to give registrars up-to-date personal information such as name and contact information, which is then required to be displayed publicly.
While there is no official Whois directory, the public output that registrars are required to display acts as a vast address book for domains. Each Whois record contains details on the registrant (.e.g. you), name servers, expiry date, and so on. Your information includes your name, address, email, and phone number.
This information is a vital resource if any issues should arise regarding your domain, such as from ownership confirmation. ICANN requires that it is shared publicly by default (unless you are protected by the GDPR, but more on this later).
Sharing your registrant information publicly has many drawbacks. The largest being that anyone can find your information online and use it however they please, including to spam you.
If you want to make sure your personal contact information is not made available to the public, one choice you can make is to use a domain privacy service.
So how important is domain privacy and what does it mean for you? Let’s dive right in.
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