Overview

WHOIS privacy, also called ID protection, replaces your personal contact details in the public WHOIS database with the registrar's proxy details. This reduces spam and protects your address and phone number. This article shows how to enable it for a domain at ALYPOD.

What it does and does not do

• It hides your name, address, phone and email from public WHOIS lookups.
• It does not hide your domain's DNS records or registration/expiry dates.
• The registrar still knows your real details and can disclose them to law enforcement or in a legal dispute.
• It works with your domain staying fully under your control; you keep managing DNS and renewals as normal.

Before you begin

• Access to the ALYPOD account that manages the domain.
• Note that some TLDs do not support privacy (for example, many country-code TLDs); the option will not be available for those.

Steps

1. Log in to account.alypod.com and open Domains.
2. Select the domain and open its settings.
3. Find the WHOIS privacy or ID protection option.
4. Toggle it on. If it is a paid add-on, confirm the order at checkout.
5. Save, then verify that the change is live:

bash whois example.com

Look for the registrar's privacy/proxy service in place of your details.

Important: email deliverability

When privacy is on, some registries forward verification and transfer-approval emails through the proxy address. Make sure forwarding works and monitor for those messages, otherwise you can miss time-sensitive domain notices.

Disabling privacy

You may need to turn privacy off to receive a transfer approval email directly, or because a registry requires it. You can re-enable it afterwards from the same screen.

Troubleshooting

• Problem: The option is unavailable. Solution: The TLD may not support WHOIS privacy; check the registry's policy.
• Problem: Your details still appear. Solution: WHOIS caches can persist for a short time and the change can take up to a day to propagate.
• Problem: You never receive registrar emails. Solution: Check the forwarding address and, if needed, disable privacy temporarily.

Related articles

• [Registering a new domain]
• [Changing nameservers]