Domain privacy, or ID Protection: What it is and how to get it

For $10 a year, you can hide the physical address, phone number and email address details that are stored for your domain. Here’s why, and how.

Contact information is collected for every domain

When you register a new domain, you are asked for three sets of contact details: registrant (owner), technical, and administrative. Even if it’s the same person each time, all three sets of information need to be included. Each set includes a name, postal address, email, and phone number.

It is important to note that providing false information is not allowed - as well as being a bad idea - and that you’re obliged to keep everything up to date.

At least some of these details are publicly accessible through a WHOIS lookup. For instance, every .nz domain’s information is available via the Domain Name Commission’s WHOIS lookup. Exactly what is findable can differ by TLD, as different regulators set different rules.

If words like "TLD", "regulator" and “WHOIS” are unfamiliar, you might want to keep this glossary of domain-related terms handy.

However, Domain Privacy masks this information from the public view in a legal way. So, while your actual contact details are stored and used by your domain retailer or registrar, the public WHOIS lookup will not display them.

ID Protection and your contact information

Domain privacy (also known as ID Protection) anonymises the contact information in your domain’s WHOIS record. Without this protection, a WHOIS lookup will display the email addresses associated with your domain. This optional feature is highly valued by many users. It’s a layer of protection that helps maintain your privacy and reduces the risk of receiving unwanted emails and calls.

When ID Protection is on, people can still use the Domain Name Commission's message delivery form to contact you via email without seeing your address.

If you register your domain with us, privacy costs an extra $10 (+GST) per year. So, while some providers bundle privacy into larger packages and charge $30 or more, MyHost offers this protection at a competitive rate. If privacy is a priority for you, make sure to factor it into your price comparisons between providers before you choose where to register your domain.

How Domain Privacy changes a WHOIS lookup

Let’s take a look at myhost.nz. When you check the WHOIS lookup results for myhost.nz, you’ll see that this is a domain without privacy protection. (In fact, New Zealand's Domain Name Commission only allows individuals, not companies, to apply ID protection.) All these contact details are out in the open:

With a person applies Domain Privacy to their details, most of those contact details are hidden. Only the name and country are displayed, with everything else hidden from public view.

Adding Domain Privacy with MyHost

Enabling Domain Privacy with MyHost is straightforward, and there are two ways to do it. Just note that not every top-level domain allows for privacy protection. So, you won’t always have this option.

As you register or transfer a domain

When you register or transfer a domain with MyHost, you can select the ID Protection while you're at the checkout, on the Domains Configuration screen. This ensures your contact details are protected from the moment your domain appears in your MyHost account.

Update your domain in the MyHost client area

For a detailed step-by-step guide on enabling domain privacy after registration, visit our MyHost Knowledgebase.

Main image: Photo by Chris Yang on Unsplash