
Ask HN: Domain privacy? - benmccann
I've been using domain privacy on my domains, but my registrar recently increased its rates by quite a bit.  I found that I would get quite a bit of spam when I made my details public.  Have you found domain privacy to be useful?  What's a good registrar offering the service at a fair price?
======
soult
Domain privacy is not just about email spam. First of all, you will also get
letter spam and quite a few scammers that try to trick you into moving your
domain to their services by claiming to be "The Domain Registry Of America" (a
London-based company, which contacted me multiple times).

Second issue is privacy. Despite (rather useles) efforts by registrars and
registries to prevent mass queries to Whois servers, there are _huge_
searchable databases of Whois data. This makes it possible for comptetitors to
"spy" on your projects, for crooks to determine your wealth and location, for
lunatics/stalkers to be always up to date on your location, etc.

I personally use nearlyfreespeech.net for domains and domain privacy.

------
pasbesoin
It's been said often before, but namecheap.com seems worth a look. Their
"WhoisGuard" (or whatever it's called) is "free" the first year (I'm not sure
about transfers) and about $3 per year after that. And their domain name
pricing for the "usual" TDL's is about $10. There's always some coupon that
will save you a fraction of a buck, sometimes more, if you google "namecheap
coupon".

Now that namecheap has implemented persistent HTTPS throughout a logged on
session, I don't feel uncomfortable mentioning them.

gandi.net and nearlyfreespeech.net are mentioned here frequently, as well
(e.g. prior comments here -- vote them up, not me). I don't have personal
experience with them.

I don't know how suitable these providers are for "commercial grade"
registrations. In my "real" work, other people buy those thing. (I'd be
interested in any informed perspectives on this.)

------
WillyF
I got rid of domain privacy a few years ago. I don't get all that much spam to
my personal e-mail account which is associated with my domains. I've also
heard that some people see domain privacy as a sign of a potentially
scammy/spammy site.

------
christefano
I've never paid for domain privacy and rolled my own instead:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=635193>

Since writing that post I've switched to using a real, physical address and I
list my company's phone number instead. As far as I can tell, none of the junk
mail, phone calls and spam I get (which is hardly any at all) are due to my
whois information.

------
arete
Domain privacy is free (for individuals) at gandi, but the details vary per
domain: for .com, .net, .org, .info, .biz, .name, tv, and .cc they'll hide
your physical location but not name. For some of the country TLDs they'll hide
your name as well.

<http://www.gandi.net/domain/whois>

