Understanding Domain Registration and WHOIS
Before delving into how NameFront’s Domain Privacy service works, let’s take a moment to understand the traditional domain registration process and the potential risks associated with it.
When you register a domain name through a registrar, such as GoDaddy® or NameCheap®, your contact information (including your name, address, email, and phone number) is required to be submitted to the WHOIS database. This database is a publicly accessible repository containing information about domain registrants. This is not a problem for established companies with business addresses, phone numbers and email addresses. If however, you’re a hobbyist, solopreneur or gig developer, this could be an issue to have your personal information visible on every domain you register.
While this information is intended to provide transparency and accountability in the domain registration process, it also poses privacy and security risks. Your personal information is easily searchable in the WHOIS database. Leaving it unmasked opens you up to spam, identity theft and harassment.
Many registrars offer free WHOIS privacy protection to mask your contact information. While this should alleviate the problem, there are still a few issues to note.
- Your information is masked in the WHOIS database, but it is still shared with the registrar. For truly effective privacy, you need a third party privacy service like NameFront to act as an intermediary for any communications.
- Sometimes the registrar’s privacy protection lapses. When this happens, your contact information, including personal details, becomes visible to anyone who performs a WHOIS lookup on the domain.
Let’s assume the registrar isn’t sharing your information, that they can be trusted to keep your information completely private and that their privacy protection never lapses. RFC 3912 still outright states that the WHOIS protocol “lacks mechanisms for access control, integrity and confidentiality” and “has no provisions for strong security”. Therefore, whatever you enter as contact information with the domain registrar could very possibly become visible to anyone who knows how to run a WHOIS lookup.
NameFront’s solution completely removes all of these risks to effectively maintain your anonymity and privacy.
Secure Domain Privacy with NameFront
Say goodbye to unwanted spam, solicitations, and privacy breaches!
NameFront works differently. In short, you create a unique email address unique@namefront.net and map it to one of your verified email addresses in your account. When registering a domain you enter the NameFront business details as the contact information along with your unique email address. Our service then forwards any email correspondence destined to your unique@namefront.net email address to the email address you have mapped.
Step 1: Sign Up for an Account
The first step is to sign up for a NameFront account. Click on the “Sign Up” button on our website and provide your basic information, including your name, email address, and a password. Once registered, you’ll have access to your NameFront dashboard where you can manage your domains and privacy settings.
Step 2: Choose Your Plan
Next, choose the Domain Privacy plan that best fits your needs. We offer a range of plans to accommodate businesses and individuals of all sizes. Select the plan that aligns with the number of unique email aliases you require. You can start with 1 and apply the same information to all of your domains. Upgrade your plan at anytime if you need more unique email addresses.
Step 3: Create Your Unique Email Aliases
Create a unique email alias under your NameFront account. The email alias allows you to receive emails sent to your domain’s contact without revealing your personal email address. To create a unique email alias, simply navigate to the Email Aliases section of your NameFront dashboard, create a unique email address, and map it to one of your verified email addresses on your NameFront account. Add more verified email addresses as needed. Upgrade your plan to map additional unique@namefront.net email addresses to your verified addresses.
Step 4: Register Your Domains
With your NameFront account set up and your unique@namefront.net email address created, it’s time to register your domains. Navigate to your registrar of choice and follow the prompts to complete the registration process. During registration, replace your personal contact information with with our privacy information, ensuring your privacy and security in the WHOIS database. The same information can be used to update contact information for existing domains.
When registering a domain name, you’ll need to provide contact information for the following:
Registrant Contacts | Administrator Contacts | Technical Contacts | Billing Contacts
Use the following privacy details for your contact information:
NameFront, LLC
Address
City, ST zip
(123) 456-7890
your-unique-email@namefront.net
Step 5: Monitor Your Domains and Email Aliases
With your domains registered and email aliases set up, you can easily manage everything from your NameFront dashboard. Monitor your domain registrations, renewals, and email forwarding settings all in one place. Need to add or remove email aliases? No problem – our user-friendly interface makes it simple to make changes as needed.
Step 6: Enjoy Peace of Mind
With NameFront’s Domain Privacy service, you can enjoy peace of mind knowing that your personal information is safe and secure. Our robust privacy protections and advanced security measures ensure that your online identity remains private, allowing you to focus on what matters most – growing your business and connecting with your audience.