WPX provides free Domain Privacy with supported domain types (not all domain types support it). Purchasing a domain from us automatically grants you free WHOIS Privacy for life but what exactly is WHOIS Privacy and is it that important?
What is WHOIS?
Anyone who owns a website, be they a business owner, organization, government, or everyday citizen, must provide accurate identification and contact information when registering their domain.
WHOIS is a query and response protocol that will provide information on domain names and IP address blocks from a database. It asks ‘Who Is’ responsible for this IP address or domain! The query may include information such as domain ownership, the date and time of registering, expiration dates, and the nameservers assigned to the domain.
The WHOIS protocol stores and delivers database content in a human-readable format.
How does it affect me?
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) currently requires the e-mail addresses, phone numbers, and even mailing addresses of all owners and administrators of domains to be publicly available.
If you own a website, then that means your personal information is being demanded to be made public on WHOIS directories. Any of this personal information will be available to anyone who queries a WHOIS server; this policy grants access even to identity thieves, spammers, and any other attackers.
Continuous debates around what kind of changes could be made to WHOIS (to provide more privacy) were slow due to a lack of consensus, but the ICANN has now moved to re-invent and improve WHOIS.
Some hosting providers, who own a lot of customers’ personal information, require little persuasion to release this private information and can earn money from doing this. Most, however, do treat privacy more seriously.
What can I do to protect myself?
There are domain privacy services available from domain name registrars and web hosting platforms. When a user buys a privacy service, their service provider replaces the customer’s personal information in the WHOIS server with info to a forwarding service. This essentially redirects queries for your info elsewhere.
At WPX, you may have noticed how we like to offer many free service features and free WHOIS Protection is one of them. Although it is not something we advertise very much, the growing concern around online privacy and the complaints against certain hosting companies who sell private information have prompted us to reassure any WPX Hosting customers (potential or existing) that their information is in good hands.
If you have any other questions on the topic, don’t hesitate to contact the WPX Support Team via live chat (use the bottom right-hand widget) and they will respond and help within 30 seconds or less.