Do you enter your details?

[skylit]

I am registering a couple of domains. Just wondering...
Do you enter all the real data for your domain (like your real home address if you're an individual, real phone number, real email...) - they will appear for everyone to view. I don't want spam comming to my email, nor do I want anyone to know where I live.

Thanks.

 

[LeX]

I think you can pay to make your information private.

You must use a valid email address.

 

[Jan]

As LeX said, you can pay extra for privacy, but if you don't and enter false details you run the risk of losing your domain. I do a heap of whois checks a day and at least one every two days say the domain name is suspended because of false info (or words to thet effect). Next time I come across one, I will post the exact error message.

 

[CareBear]

If you're registering several domains and don't want to put bogus information on your whois, it might be cheaper to look into a post office mailbox instead of buying privacy with each of them as an option.
That will still tell people which country or area you're from, but at the same time, so will every email you send.

If you have a domain, you will always get some degree of spam since whois information does get harvested.
It is important to have a valid, active email address on file (preferably one that isn't from the same domain) for your whois since that's the one that will be used to contact you if there are any problems with your domain such as past expiration, for domain transfers, etc.

If you keep the email accounts you personally use separate from the catch all address though, none of it should make it to your inbox.

 

[skylit]

Thanks for your thoughts on this subject.
I've just registered two domains with namecheap.com, and they offer a free WhoisGuard subscription, which hides my info from whois, and writes some stuff about WhoisGuard instead. I can turn this off whenever I want, and I still have full ownership for the domains. This is a limited time offer, so I guess I'm just lucky.

By the way, so far I'm very happy with namecheap.com. I had a domain at powerpipe.com, and it's nothing compared to what I got now. Great service (I hope so).