Domain Privacy and Protection is a kind of service provided by the hosting provider or the domain registrar to the owner of the domain name( simply domain) so that none can hijack, attack, spam, inject malware into or manipulate the domain and its owner’s information for his personal gains and run into unauthorized, prohibited actions.
When you are going to start a website, the first step is to register a domain with a valid and reliable domain registrar that is accredited with the ICANN——-an international organization to maintain domain name’s rule and regulation along with registries and registrars. The entity, organization or the person willing to register a domain name will have to give a number of information such as name of business, place, address, phone number, email address etc. On completion of registration, these sensitive data of the registrants are submitted to the whois database which can be accessed by a third party who can manipulate these for his personal ends like selling data for commercial purpose, email spamming or injecting malicious code if there is not any preventive measure like shielding against accessing by others or protecting by hiding real information and instead sending modified proxy information so as to protect the domain name from all kind of possible attacks, hacking or hijacking. So, if you want to safeguard your domain, then you should opt for Domain Privacy and Protection.
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Is Domain Privacy and Protection Obligatory?
Domain Privacy is a matter of serious importance for the site owners as it contains sensitive personal information. Cyber threats are now increasing by leaps and bounds day by day in such an extent that even the tech giants like Cognizant, Google are not safe from online attacks.You must have heard that how the cyber criminal had attacked and hacked Haldiram’s servers, stole away important financial and business related files, and demanded US$750000 to encrypt and give back all data to the site owner. In such an environment the website owner ought to defend his personal details and sensitive data to keep secure and build credibility and sense of trustworthiness.
Many people think Domain Privacy and Protection is not a must-do that sounds true as per GDPR implemented in the Spring of 2018 by the European Organization. This rule and regulation is effective not only for the European citizens but also for the all. GDPR tried to enforce a strong rule as how to protect data, however after several legal fight it has come to a verdict that in order to co-operate with ICANN some non-sensitive data of website owners such as site’s name, location, date still could be accessed under the temporary specification for fair use.
But as per my opinion, Domain Privacy and Protection is a must-do, because, if once your site gets hacked, hijacked or defamed, then it will be blacklisted, too, by search engine like Google. All your long-laboured efforts are spoilt in the blink of your eye. Domain hijacking happened in many places like in Lenovo and Google where websites were hijacked by DNS attacks. If your site gets bad-reputed, it will be too hard to recover. You will lose credibility, financial revenues as well visitors. Organic traffic too will be reduced. To reach the previous state will be very difficult if you are a small blogger or businessman where there is lack of sufficient human resource and power.
Which Kind of Website Need Domain Privacy and Protection?
Insofar as security as concerned, Domain Privacy and Protection is indispensable regardless of whether you own a small online business or a big enterprise provided that you are serious in the arena of your future expectation of building a high quality business profile serving a range of demand-oriented products satisfying the needs of the customers both online and offline as now we are living in the era of modern technology that minimizes the gap of time and space in a short span of time. Importance of privacy may be upgraded or downgraded according to the demand and nature of website. In case of simple blogging site you can use any normal layer of Domain Privacy and Protection provided by the concerned webhost provider or the registrar. It suffices you. Don’t worry too much. On the other hand, if you own an e-commerce store or any site dealing with sensitive data like company’s profile, income, customer’s profile and business insider details then you should opt for a dedicated layer of Domain Privacy. It will cost you a bit more but security is upgraded.
Oh! Are you thinking too much to cost? Don’t mind. If you cost a little more, it will accrue a good trust from the visitors and customers. So, don’t leave your site unprotected lest it will be flooded with spamming, unwanted call and phishing.
How Many Sites Use Domain Privacy and Protection?
Domain registration is necessary for independent website for a particular purpose if you are serious about your future business and to keep it secure from all kind of threat is obligatory upon you. Many readers ask us, “How many sites use Domain Privacy and Protection? ” Most of the site owners who take care of their online business use competent measures to protect their domain. A study by NORC on domain registration identification( at the University of Chicago) submitted to the ICANN shows that only 20% domains were registered using proxy service. They conducted a research on 1600 domains from top 5 TLDs. Based on their analysis the following result could show you which methods were applied for domain identification.
Who Provides Domain Privacy and Protection?
Domain Privacy and Protection service mostly provided by the domain registrars where you have registered your domain. Sometimes it is provided by the webhosting companies. Generally, majority of the domain registrar companies have integrated this feature with their registration plan though it may vary from company to company. If you register a domain with Namecheap, Namesilo, Domain, Name, Hover or Dynadot, you can select Whois guard i.e., privacy option to hide and protect your domain from being accessed by third-parties.
Is Domain Privacy and Protection Free or Paid?
Whether Domain Privacy and Protection is free or paid is a frequently asked question inasmuch as it comes to a newbie who yet did not enter into the field of webhosting with a self-hosted premium domain. So, don’t worry. I will clarify you all the details as much as required. The following Domain Registrars will give you free Domain Privacy, such as:
I have used many domain registrars and found that the most of them take extra charge to provide Domain Privacy Protection but neither Namecheap nor Namesilo take extra charge for that service. Now, Dynadot, too, does’t take extra money to provide this security feature. So, if you select a domain to register at these registrars, don’t forget to add the Whois guard Privacy. It will not cost you any extra charge. This service has been integrated with their plan.
Any basic domain name registration with Namecheap starts at $8.88/year for .com, $9.18/year for .org, $ 10.78/year for .net, $3.28/year for .co etc.
Similarly, you can register any basic domain at Namesilo at $ 8.99/year for .com, $10.79/year for .org, $ 11.79/year for .net etc. If you opt for bulk domain registration, then you will avail some discount fee. It will not charge any extra fee or hidden charge for Domain Privacy and Protection.
You will avail both the domain registration and Privacy Protection free of cost for the first year if you host a site at Bluehost. It maintains reliable infrastructure, speed, performance, free ssl, Cloudflare CDN and good customer service as well as bandwidth. But from second year onwards, you have to pay the normal fee for domain registration renewal and Whois guard( domain privacy).
| Domain Selection | TLD Type | Registration Fee /Domain/y | Domain Privacy Fee |
| Any available domain | .com | $11.99 | $11.88/Y |
| .org | $8.99 | $11.88/Y | |
| .net | $12.99 | $11.88/Y |
Importance of Domain Privacy and Protection
Why Domain Privacy and Protection so important? Is Domain Privacy compulsory? Can I go without Domain Privacy?———These are some of the queries that haunt your mind frequently when you are going to choose a domain name and think for protecting your personal information registered with it. No matter, whatever you think. Domain privacy is compulsory from the prospect of security and privacy.
Whatever domain you register is searchable and accessible through Whois Database. Because, Whois Directory contains all information regarding your name, phone number, email, personal contact information etc. If you don’t opt for whois privacy( whois guard ), then indeed! you do a blunder. Under this circumstances, your personal information can be accessed and even can be manipulated to one’s own personal ends. Hence, in order to keep your data hidden from the rest of the world , you ought to select and keep active the whois guard, namely, the Domain Privacy.
The registered domains which are kept under privacy and protection will not be shown public with all data. It will not display personal data, such as your email, contact information and other details. Marketeers, searchers and trackers will be displayed the proxy ones instead of actual data. Thus it shields your data from hackers.
Once your personal information, such as username or password get published/leaked, your domain may be hijacked and even the whole website may be hacked. Thus your dream of building a good website through long-labour may end in smoke.
You may be flooded with unwanted calls and emails( spamming) by the sellers and marketeers if your contact information remains open. Thus keeping your domain shielded keeps you safe from unwanted call and spamming.
In the market there are many third parties, companies and data analytic organisation or agency who collect data, analyze it and sell to other third party for commercial purpose. They may use this ‘Data Scraping‘ if your domain remains accessible and unrestricted. So, in order to keep your data under privacy and secrecy you have to put it under whois guard.
Your small business is your own property which you have built by means of hard labour and sacrifice. Who are you? Where do you stay? How do you operate in the market? How do you launch products? ——-All these are your own strategies which must be kept secret from your competitors. If it is leaked may affect your business. Hence, for the shake of success and unique innovation, it is binding upon you to keep your information safe and hidden.
Identity is an important matter insofar as it concerns buying, selling or registering personal information with a company. Without genuine information you cannot register a domain. Your registration may be terminated if you provide false identity and cannot show the genuine one in time of necessity. So, to provide real data at the time of domain registration is a compulsion as per ICANN.
It is a positive side of the aspect but, you ought to take into consideration the negative side, too, that is identity theft. Once if your identity, viz, login credentials leaked, your website may be severely hacked, attacked or transferred by providing authentication code by cybercriminal or hacker. Hence, to save your domain from all kind of risks is your utmost duty. That is why Domain Privacy and Protection is unavoidable that must be configured properly to keep active when you are going to select a domain for registration.
