In the post-era of Covid-19, many people have not yet become economically prosperous. People who are involved in online business are still suffering from financial losses. On top of that, the number of cyber-attacks are not decreasing, rather it has increased further.
According to the cybersecurity report of 2020, an estimated 1.5 trillion US dollars were spoiled in 2018 due to the increasing rate of cybercrime. A large number of industries whether they are governmental or local are being the target of ransomware attacks. An organization may have to pay more than 3.5 million dollars for the misuse of personal information.
So, you may have understood that getting your personal information in the wrong hands can be very dangerous. That is exactly why you need domain privacy protection. In this article, we are going to explain 10 reasons why you badly need domain privacy protection.
What is Exactly Domain Privacy Protection?
Every domain name is listed in a publicly protected database, which is called WHOIS. This database is searchable and anyone can access it by using the internet. Domain privacy protection or WHOIS privacy protection is an ‘add-on’ service that you need to buy for keeping your personal data private from the world; such as contact number, email address, name, etc.
If you are not running a large company with sufficient security, you don’t want to expose your personal information to others. However, your personal data will be exposed to everyone unless you purchase domain privacy protection.
WHOIS allows us to trace the ownership of any domain and relevant information. For example, we can find out the registrar name of Adidas when we search in WHOIS –
Once we search by typing ‘Adidas’, we will find out the domain registrar. We can also find out the date of registration and when it will expire – If we scroll down a little bit, we can see that the registrant and other contact information –
If we scroll down a little bit, we can see that the registrant and other contact information –
10 reasons to explain the importance of getting Domain Privacy Protection:
The records collected by WHOIS are used by ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers). A set of data privacy protection was implemented by the European Union in 2018, which is called GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation). The private data of the European citizens are protected by GDPR.
And companies or entities have to deal with penalties if they don’t comply with these regulations. Based on the disclosure of personal information to the public, ICANN and GDPR faced a conflict because the WHOIS database did not require the registrar’s specific consent. After many legal battles, both came to an agreement when ICANN implemented the Temporary Specification for gTLD Registration Data, which concludes many regulations of the GDPR.
Although ICANN’s Temporary Specification can protect sensitive information stored in the WHOIS database, it is just that temporary. Purchasing domain privacy protection is obviously an effective solution to keep confidential information out of public view. Here are 10 reasons that are convincing enough to purchase domain privacy protection –
1 . Your personal data might be revealed in WHOIS:
As your personal information is revealed in the WHOIS database, almost anyone can access them.
We are guessing that you don’t want to expose your personal data, especially when building a new concept, website, or personal project. You never know who keeps an intention to harm you.
2. Your personal information can be at risk:
As your sensitive information is being exposed, it is easy for hackers, envious acquaintances, competitors, or people with bad intentions to use them. As a result, your information can be at risk leaving you in grave danger.
Even worse, you will lose all your customer’s data once your website gets hacked. Therefore, the trust that you have built with your customers will perish in an instant.
3. You may become a victim of identity theft and blackmail:
As a result of not privacy protection, you can become a victim of identity theft. This can be a serious issue as someone can use your identity in any field and the field is more likely to be bad. Eventually, this type of situation often leads to blackmail. Buying domain privacy is crucial to protecting yourself from such dangers.
4. You might be disturbed by unwanted calls and even get scammed:
Poor grade marketers will push themselves to their limits to reach you once they gather your personal information. As a result, you will get tons of annoying phone calls asking you to buy various unnecessary products.
What’s even worse is that you can get scammed. Chances are high that these sales folks will scam you in various ways to buy unnecessary things.
5 . You may receive a lot of spam emails:
If you notice that your mailbox is full of spam, they are probably coming from websites where you haven’t subscribed. If you have faced something similar, count the number of spam emails and find out their sources.
As your personal data are lying exposed, it becomes easier for the spammers to fill your mailbox with unwanted spam emails. Spammers know how to collect personal data and they regularly check public directories. Their usual targets are small business owners. So, it’s not only unwanted phone calls but also enormous amounts of spam emails ruining your daily life.
6. Hackers may attack your website and online assets:
Okay! This is one of the main reasons that you should buy domain privacy protection. You invested money, invested your time, and put serious effort to build your website. All of these can be taken away if it is not well protected.
Your website can be the victim of a fraudulent domain transfer even without your authorization. To be more precise, hackers can hack into your website to access the domain control panel and transfer your domain to their names.
Therefore, building a website without prior domain privacy protection is like leaving the front gate of your house open to strangers. Domain privacy protection keeps your website safe from such a major crime by shielding confidential information.
7 . The danger of data scraping:
There are some companies or entities that are engaged in the data scraping business. What it means is that they collect personal information that is available in various public resources such as WHOIS and sell them to third parties.
For instance, we can take a look at the recent allegation, which stated that Facebook sold personal data to advertisers.
So, you can probably understand since there are data scraping allegations against a big organization like Facebook, it cannot be considered as a trivial matter. Therefore, you should always pay attention to your cybersecurity and purchase domain privacy protection as soon as possible if you haven’t.
8. Risk of letting yourself know to your competitors:
Your competitors will start stalking you as soon as they find your personal information. If they have a loss-making mindset, they will try to check your personal data to find out who you are, what your business background is, and what can be done to damage your business.
Now, you should remember, as a small business owner you can’t work with a vast resource. So, finding something unique from your limited resource can become very expensive for your competitors. Worst-case scenarios, your competitors can even hack your domain if they are way expert in technical knowledge and own top-class equipment.
So, keep your website covered with privacy protection, and don’t allow your competitors to stalk you by showing all your trump cards.
9. You may have to deal with unwanted advertisements:
By revealing your personal information to spammers and pushy marketers, your website may face trouble with unwanted ads. Small marketers will try to advertise their products on your website.
A lot of ads on a single page will make your content condensed and unorganized. This can be a potential issue when you run a small online business or blog.
As your website isn’t capable of handling a large number of ads on the page, it will take more time to load. Eventually, you will start to lose your regular customers. Although you should promote advertisements on your website, displaying huge ads is not a part of professionalism.
10. Authentic information is needed to register a domain:
You might be wondering “Why do I need to provide real data in the first place when I can register with fake data?”. The answer is – you can’t register a domain with fake data. There is no chance that WHOIS will list your domain with fake information.
Again, a question may arise: “How will they determine whether my data is fake or real?”. Actually, the registering process is kind of similar to governing authority. When you register any asset for a governmental sector, you are prohibited to use fake or incorrect information. The process of registering a domain is very similar.
Moreover, authenticity is very important when you are running a small business that has yet to gain the trust of clients. It is normal that your audience won’t trust you and your words when you are using fake information. Try to be real as much as possible to your audience.
Surely, the reputed companies in the world have not reached this position today with counterfeit information. So forget about registering your domain name with wrong information and be safe purchasing domain ownership protection.
Your Choices for Making Domain Private:
There are 3 choices available for you to make your domain private and protected. We are sure that you have understood by now who is the winner in the match of private vs public domain. So, let’s get to the point by defining the options –
- Purchase a Privacy Protection Service at the of Domain Registration:
There are many attractive packages from GoDaddy, HostGator, Bluehost, SiteGround where you will get free domain privacy protection at the time of registration. You will become the owner of a private web domain with a protection service. So, get domain privacy protection service at the very beginning.
- Add Privacy Protection to an Existing Domain:
If you have already registered for a domain but haven’t purchased WHOIS privacy protection, then you add it at your earliest convenience. If you find that your domain privacy is not well-protected, you should contact your registrar and purchase privacy protection today.
- Private Domain Registration Renewal:
You should renew your private domain if it gets expired. Don’t spend time recklessly and renew it at the earliest eve. Because your slight negligence can cause a lot of damage.
Conclusion:
In the world of the internet, information is currency and personal information is as valuable as gold. At the end of this conversation, we will suggest that owners of small and large domains should opt for extra security. Their dedicated domains should be planned for adequate privacy protection to keep sensitive WHOIS information out of the wrong hands. We appreciate that you have read this article taking your time. Please, feel free to express your thoughts and ideas in the comment box.
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