I would say 90% of clients who order a domain name through us, want domain privacy on their domain. It really is a great feature for people not running a business imo. But alot of scammers and spammers abuse this feature to be harder to trace, thus making the rest look shady from the start.

We had an issues last week. Someone reported that our ZIP code on the WhoIs was wrong and the domain registrar redirected the domain to any parking DNS and brought us some troubles for a few days. If it was on WhoIs privacy, no one would report it! This is just an example to the thread.

If you are running a local business and have domain privacy, you will kill your local SERPs.

I was at Hostingcon a couple of weeks ago and caught a few sessions on the Local Search market. Google for example compares whois data, business directory listings and data on your own site to try to figure out where your business is located.

The more you hide your business the harder it is for search bots to nail down your location.

If you run a business out of your house, get a mailing box service. UPS stores provide a great mail box service that gives you a real mailing address and not a PO box.

We have a central office for 5-6 people, but still use our UPS box. Fewer sales people dropping in, delivery people don't interrupt us, etc. Very good for small operations and typically less than $20/mo.

I am use whois privacy for hide my personal email and phone number.

Other main reason?
yes, I am provide my personal email and I think if I am not use Whois Privacy then someone check my domain email in whois and then try to reset my password.


Lots of risk

whois privacy is good, getting them certified and priviteized works great too.

Godaddy has alot of good features.

I have seen a lot of people saying keep your privacy and others saying no.

I do agree with the Google local search comment but if you are a large corporation and you don't want people finding out who to contact i.e. CEO email address than that is when I would keep it private.

There are a lot of reasons to keep it private and not to I just think that it is up to the user to decide.

I would not like that Anyone know my full name and other contact information.

It's to protect their personal information, if you have anything to do with the internet now days, it's nearly impossible to protect your privacy and it is becoming a pretty big chore for most people.