WHOIS Privacy Services

Discussions center on domain registrars offering free WHOIS privacy protections like Namecheap's WhoisGuard, debates over their legality under ICANN rules, GDPR impacts on public WHOIS data, and recommendations for providers avoiding personal info exposure.

➡️ Stable 0.7x DevOps & Infrastructure
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Keywords

COM OBTW US e.g circleid.com OK porkbun.com nic.es markmonitor.com ICANN whois domain registrar namecheap privacy com information google com gdpr icann

Sample Comments

westy Oct 15, 2010 View on HN

This seems to rely on whois records. For those opting to avoid public whois info, this doesn't seem to have much value.

talideon Apr 17, 2025 View on HN

WHOIS privacy isn't a registry-level service. It's a registrar-level service.

damian2000 Mar 5, 2013 View on HN

You need an anonymized WHOIS service. Namecheap offers free anonymized WHOIS by default on their domains ... its called "WhoisGuard Protection". Its a must have these days.

charcircuit May 17, 2022 View on HN

What do you mean? Like an insider at ICANN who can get the owner's actual contact information instead of a whois guard?

ryanwaggoner May 24, 2020 View on HN

WHOIS guard privacy has been free on Namecheap for awhile

AnnoyingSwede Apr 25, 2019 View on HN

They are using cloudflare, so that would be tough even if it was not illegal. Whois data is protected, so doubt they would respond if contacted.

SenHeng Apr 8, 2018 View on HN

I'm a Gandi user and but I hate that they insist on leaving my email address in the WHOIS data.

105e9 May 27, 2018 View on HN

How is Namecheap e.g. providing an option to hide your whois information somehow shady?

jsnell Apr 8, 2018 View on HN

It's probably due to the GDPR. My understanding is that a lot of registrars are removing all personal information from WHOIS due to GDPR concerns.

stormbrew Jun 24, 2014 View on HN

Free whois privacy. Hopefully this pushes some other dns providers to do the same.