Paula G. Web Design

Today I was meeting with a client and we got to talking about registering her domain name.  She asked my advice as to whether or not she should purchase that domain name with a public or a private registration.  I thought this would be an ideal question to tackle here on the blog.

First of all, when you purchase (aka register) a domain name you want to do so through an ICANN accredited registrar. ICANN is responsible for being the big traffic cop of all Internet names and associated addresses.

My personal domain registrar recommendation both in terms of cost and convenience is GoDaddy. There are many others that are accredited that can help you as well.

When you purchase a domain name for a given cost, you are then asked whether you want to register it in your own name/business name (public) or have that hidden by registering via a proxy for an additional fee (private).  It can cost anywhere from a few dollars/year on up for the private registration service.  You can see how GoDaddy explains its Private Domain Registration in “Make Your Domain Registration Private”.

When you do so, your personal information is masked within the WHOIS database. You can get the gritty details at Wikipedia. However, if you don’t want your head to spin, just think of the WHOIS database as the big centralized database that has all the information on all the domain names that exist on the Internet - the domain name, the associated IP addresses, the registrar information (name, address, phone, etc.).

Here is an example of the difference between public and private domain registration as seen in the WHOIS database.  (This screen shot is from the following website: http://www.domainsbyproxy.com/popup/whoisexample.aspx?app_hdr=0&ci=5165)

As you can see, in the private registration all the contact information is noted as Domains By Proxy, Inc. and their related address and contact information. Essentially they act as a proxy (no pun intended!) for your registration shielding all your personal information from view.  The WHOIS database is open to the public via the Internet. Anyone has access to it.  Go check it out for yourself. You might be amazed what you find.

Now, what are the Pro’s and Con’s of public versus private?  Well, in my opinion the main positives of public is that it is less expensive.  And, if you are using a PO Box or Business address, you may or may not care that the information is public.  If you do a lot of business on the web or have a physical address tied to your website that information is already public.  However, if you have a personal website or a home address associated with your business you might not want that information as readily available (even though it still may be out on the web in some way, shape, or form).

The major benefits of private registration is that it protects you from potential:

• Identity theft (although again, this is just one possible avenue, chances are your identity is already floating around the web in some way, hopefully not the super secret confidential stuff, however)
• Spammers that harvest the WHOIS database and domain registration information to essentially send you spam and junk mail
• Harrassers and stalkers
• Disclosure of home-based or moonlighting businesses you want kept private

Again, the cost is not very much per domain. If you have a lot of domains registered, however, it can start to add up.

I do not know any hard core numbers around the potential rists of the items I mention above. Surely we all know identity theft and spam is a big problem. How much of it is tied directly to public registration in the WHOIS database is anyone’s guess. If you know of any real figures, please post the links to them in the comments so we can all benefit.

So the ultimate answer to public versus private registration - that is up to you.  If added privacy and peace of mind are important to you it is definitely, no questions asked worth the added costs. Just remember your information may be public elsewhere already.

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