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I'm thinking of registering a domain name. Is there any danger putting my real info on there? Do they get spammed by phone spam, snail mail spam, or email spam?

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6 Answers

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Yes, if an email address is available on the internet and it is in normal text form (like it is in whois info), it has the likeliness of getting email spam. I recommend against listing your email or any info if you can. It is not worth the risk in this situation.

Update: But this does not mean adding false information. You should be able to hide your contact info from the public.

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Technically you can lose your domain for falsifying whois info. – MrStatic Mar 15 '10 at 4:52
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But you can pay a fee to keep your whois info private. – xpda Mar 15 '10 at 7:15
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Several hosting providers (like Dreamhost.com) offer to hide your contact by providing their info instead. It's still your domain, but they handle it for you. – Torben Gundtofte-Bruun Aug 10 '10 at 5:52
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I've received spam from very suspicious businesses both by e-mail and smail mail. Some simply pretend that they're the ones handling my domain names, and plainly send me a bill for it. Sneaky bastards. I don't know how many people fall for such things. Most people never touch their domains once they're registered, so they'd be easily fooled. – Torben Gundtofte-Bruun Aug 10 '10 at 5:55
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up vote 4 down vote

If you don't want to pay for additional whois privacy, then you may want to do what I did: I created a Gmail-based email on the domain, and that's what I used as the whois email address.

From experience, seldom does spam penetrate the inbox of a Gmail-based email and when it does, it doesn't last that long.

Spamming me would be alright. Check-out my domain's whois info http://www.networksolutions.com/whois-search/casimpan.com

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This still leaves your mailing address exposed. The equivalent of a special-purpose gmail account for email is a PO box. – Kevin Vermeer Nov 22 '11 at 14:38
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up vote 2 down vote

I've had several domains listed for 10 years+ with Network Solutions, 1 and 1, and godaddy, and never paid for the privacy options. I get some spam and a little snail mail from it, but it's a small percentage of my total spam. There's no real danger that I can see.

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Same here. The only spam I ever get is from some domain registrar saying that I should renew with them (usually for 3 times the price I pay with my current registrar) - either by e-mail or snail mail. I also got an offer to buy one of my domain names once - doesn't really count as spam, however. I may have misunderstood the "keep your info private" service option, but from a quick read I got the feeling the registrar then owns the domain rather than me owning it(??) – MetalMikester Mar 15 '10 at 11:39
@MetalMikester: i think the way it works is the registrar's info is listed under the WHOIS, and ppl have to contact them to get your contact info? seems like you're still the one to own the domain though.. – Claudiu Aug 9 '10 at 20:23
@Claudiu: The "agreement" I had read (and that was at least a couple of years ago) seemed to imply that they owned it, but it may have been just that registrar (I can't remember which ones that was.) This may have changed, or I simply misunderstood the agreement (we all love legalese. :)) – MetalMikester Aug 10 '10 at 11:37
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up vote 1 down vote

I have had several domains and the only thing that I have ever gotten was a yearly snail mail asking to update my whois info.

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up vote 0 down vote

I think if you register a domain today, you're probably OK, especially if you take advantage of some of the available privacy options.

I registered a couple of domains back in the late '90s, using a hotmail account - that was the only place that particular email address was ever used, and it started receiving spam immediately and it continues today.

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up vote 0 down vote

There are chances of getting spammed because your domain information will be visible if a Whois search is done using any whois tools like WhoisXY . May be you can give your landline number instead of your mobile number. If you have any problems putting your personal information you can hide it using private registration services available with many domain registrars.

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