Facts about private domain registration
A private domain registration is a valuable service that is typically provided by domain name registrars for people or organizations who wants to acquire a domain name but doesn’t want to be publicly listed in the WHOIS database. In the process of buying or registering a domain name, the owner of the domain is mandated to submit contact details such as the name, mailing address, phone number, and email address to the WHOIS directories as required by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers or ICANN. However the WHOIS database can be accessed by the public and therefore the domain owner are vulnerable to spammers, scammers, direct marketers, and identity thieves so it’s quite unsafe. This is why a private domain registration becomes very important.
In a private domain registration, the company that provides the service replaces the owner’s information with that of the privacy domain company which in turn does not divulge important things about the real owner. You still need to provide your personal information to the company so that they can forward messages to you but that limits other parties trying to access you. Your personal information is safe from dangerous or annoying people that can track you from the public WHOIS listing. Doing a private domain registration is like opting out of the phonebook.
One major advantage of a private domain registration is that you still get to keep your rights as the domain owner, even though it is not listed under your name for security purposes. On top of added protection, it's still possible to cancel, sell, renew, or transfer your domain, settle disputes regarding your domain, and setup the name servers for your domain. Briefly, you still enjoy the full control of the domain name that you own even though it is not technically registered to your name.
However, there are certain risks when going for a private domain registration as it has several legal issues. The private registration service, in paper, is still the legal owner of the domain that was registered. This has a lot of consequences especially if the private registration service becomes bankrupt and stopped its operations. This will lead to a of headache for domain owners to maintain control of their domains since they do not technically own them. So if you are thinking of acquiring a private domain registration, make sure that the domain registrar is a highly reliable company that can be trusted.