After spending perhaps hundreds of hours searching for the perfect identity for your brand, the time will inevitably come when you must purchase the domain name for your website. This is in itself a very simple process, even lasting a few minutes, that marks the beginning of your brand's online operations. However, within this process there is one very important point that you must consider and that is completely optional: acquiring the option of a private domain.
What does a private domain entail?
Before deciding on any domain purchase, I recommend taking a few minutes to think and decide as objectively as possible if you can benefit from purchasing a private domain with a few simple points:
Every domain has an owner
Purchasing a domain involves, indirectly, registering it with ICANN through a domain seller and proving that you are the legitimate owner of this site. For this reason, they will ask you for personal information – name, phone number and email – so that, in case someone has any issues related to that domain, they can contact you.
You will typically need to provide information for three different points when registering a domain:
The contact of the person who is making the registration
The one who can be sought for administrative matters
Any other person for references on technical matters
Your information is visible
Once you provide this information, it can be easily viewed by anyone through the WhoIs tool, available on the ICANN website and other domain registration services.
This is a kind of search engine that allows you to reveal contact details for virtually any domain out there. This is where red flags might go off. How important is it to keep your name and contact details hidden from the eyes of virtually everyone on the Internet?
Risks and dangers of having your information accessible to everyone
Identity theft . Perhaps one of the most delicate points is that anyone, oman business email list even those with bad intentions, could use this data for their own benefit. At the end of the day, it is legitimate data that you are giving in order to have a domain and it could be used to purchase others without your knowledge.
The blessed spam . We all know it, delete it, and hate it. Receiving unwanted emails is a routine task in any business, but that doesn't mean you have to show your address to everyone. Hundreds of companies, including online scammers, browse through WhoIs databases to obtain contact emails that they can bombard with fake and, in some cases, fraudulent phishing messages to steal your personal information.
A private domain for your online peace of mind . Fortunately, all of the above points are resolved through what is known as registering a private domain. This option, which is given to you when you are making the purchase process and which can normally double the cost of the domain, protects your information by listing a Proxy company in the contact section of the WHOIS directory , hiding your identity from unwanted queries while you retain full ownership of the domain.
Important Considerations
I recommend that you carefully read all the fine print when contracting this service so that you know what you are and are not delegating. There are companies that abuse this process to be able to register not only in the contact section, but also as owners of the domain itself.
Be careful and if you have any questions, check or contact the company you are registering with to make sure the process is completely transparent.
If your business is small, and especially if you are home-based, it is probably a terrible idea to have your contact information available to everyone. If your company is already a bit established, it is likely that you will not mind having the different contact points you record as the telephones, emails and employees designated by you. These could be business opportunities to open up for someone to get in touch to negotiate some kind of commercial alliance or simply to offer a service.
Ultimately, deciding what to do is up to you. Keeping your online data private goes beyond social media and email accounts when we're talking about something as sensitive as your own domain . Think about how it might or might not affect you in the short and long term and whether it's an investment that could wait.
