Private Registration

[FastActionDomains]

Is it wise to use the "private registration" option when registering a domain?

Or does that make it more difficult for others to contact you if they are interested in buying your domain?

Thanks!

Fast Action Domains

[nielsencl]

Sorry no one replied to you before this...!

Private registration is ok, but the question is "Why do you need it?" and there can be several answers. The WHOIS will still have an email address that should forward to your email address. Then you can reply or not to what people send you.

If you want to sell domains, I would not make it any harder than you have to for people to reach you. I would create an email address forward that you can add to all your domains, and then change if you start getting lots of spam. With bulk updates it doesn't take long to change the email addresses for all your domains if you need to.

And NOT having a private whois may help people to trust you are an honest domainer, since they can see who you are. And you can use some of the contact information to list the domain for your company or sales site. Or just have a short message "Contact us if you are interested in this domain".

We don't use private whois for most of our domains and have 3 different email contacts for the 3 contact types. This is so if one of the email domains is not working we can still get email at the others. We don't want to miss those sales leads, the renewal notices, or any C & D letters that may be sent.

[jdk]

Just buy a PO box if you don't want to put your real address down

[steveatvillas]

The reason for privacy is because you don't want the world to know what you're up to. Simple as that. If you've been a bad boy, the privacy option offered by all registrars is easily pierced with court orders. And as Nielsencl says, a person can still send an email if they're interested in buying. The email goes through the privacy account and still lands in your inbox, so no worries there.

I use privacy because I don't want the world to know what I'm up to until I'm ready to go public. You can thank all the bottom feeding, parasitic and cybersquatting domainers for creating the need for privacy.

I still get summons, well, only one – when it's from Microsoft's lawyers one is enough.... and I was exonerated. I still get offers for domains, via my privacy account. Buying and selling, actually. So the system works.

Steve