Whois Publicity

Domain contact data is redacted and replaced with placeholder information by default to protect against personal information exposure due to new privacy laws worldwide. Whois Publicity lets registrants choose to publish their contact information in the public Whois record.

Only Whois lookup services that pull results from the Enom Whois server will return the registrant details for any of your publicity-activated domains.

Note: Whois Publicity is only available for gTLDs.

• Enabling Whois Publicity
• Whois Publicity statuses
• Contact data that will be displayed
• Domains with ID Protect enabled
• Disabling WhoIs Publicity

Enabling Whois Publicity

Whois Publicity must be enabled from your account or via the API if you are a reseller before being activated on a domain.

1. Select Domains from the top toolbar and choose My domains from the drop-down menu.
   
2. Check off any domain that you want to enable Whois Publicity on.
3. From the List action menu in the lower-left corner, select Add Whois Publicity and click Go.
   
4. On the Bulk add services page, press Instant purchase to add it to the domain.
   Note: The cost is $0.00/yr per domain.
   
5. A confirmation page will show the successful addition to the domain.
   
6. An email will be sent to the registrant's contact email with a link to activate Whois Publicity. Once received, click the checkbox followed by Save preferences. 
   Note: The registrant only needs to provide their consent for Whois Publicity once. If they later choose to have the Publicity service enabled on another domain, it will activate automatically as long as their consent status remains set to on.
   
   

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Whois Publicity statuses

You can see the status of Whois Publicity on your domain management page.

1. Select Domains from the top toolbar and then My domains from the drop-down menu.
2. Hover your cursor over any Whois Publicity icon to see its status.

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Contact data that will be displayed

When Whois Publicity is enabled, we will display:

• All Registrant data required under the registry’s contract for your TLD.
• Any data that you have given us consent to process. You can provide consent through your granted data sharing preferences page sent out via email.

Full Registrant data set includes:

• First and last name
• Organization (if provided)
• Street, city, state, and zip or postal code
• Country
• Phone number
• Fax number (if provided)
• Email address

Note: Only the Registrant contact data set will be published—Whois Publicy data does not display information for the domain’s administrative, billing, or technical contact.

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Domains with ID Protect enabled

If both ID Protect and Whois Publicity are active on the same domain, ID Protect will always prioritize. Queries for the domain in the public Whois will return the ID Protect fields instead of the registrant’s information. You must disable ID Protect for Whois Publicity to take effect.

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Disabling WhoIs Publicity

Whois Publicity can be disabled and re-enabled at any time via your account or API if you are a reseller. 

1. Select Domains from the top toolbar and then My domains from the drop-down menu.
2. Click on the domain name you are working with.
3. Select Contact information using the Manage domain menu or at the bottom of the page.
4. Check off your desired status for Whois Publicity and press the Save button.

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