How much is WHOIS privacy actually costing you?

[william]

WHOIS privacy is one of those things most of us turned on without thinking twice. Registrars pushed it hard, spam was annoying, and “privacy” sounded smart. But I think a lot of sellers are underestimating what they gave up in the process.

For years, WHOIS was one of the main ways buyers figured out how to reach a domain owner. Not through landing pages. Not through marketplaces. Just a simple email address sitting there.

If someone wanted your domain, they looked it up and emailed you. That was it. That channel is mostly gone now.

And before anyone says “buyers can just use a landing page,” that assumes a few things that are not always true in the real world.

First, not every domain has a sales lander. A huge number of good domains sit parked, forwarded, or unused. Second, many buyers are not domain people. They do not know where to look next when WHOIS shows “privacy protected.”

They just move on.

I know this because I have seen it from both sides.

Years ago, I sold domains purely from WHOIS inquiries. No BIN prices. No outbound. Just emails that started with “Hi, are you the owner of…?”

Some of those turned into five figure deals.

Wholesale offers worked the same way. Other investors would notice a name, check WHOIS, and send a straight offer. Not spam. Not lowball junk. Real peer to peer messages.

That flow has slowed dramatically. Yes, some registrars offer contact forms now, but many buyers do not trust them. They do not know if the message actually goes through or disappears into a system. And plenty of people will not bother filling out a form at all.

A common scenario looks like this. A startup founder sees a domain they want while testing a brand idea. They type it into the browser, see it’s taken, and check WHOIS. If they see an email, they reach out the same day.

If they see privacy protection, that moment often ends there.

They brainstorm another name and keep moving.

You never know they existed.

Another common one: a company assigns a junior employee or assistant to research a domain. That person checks availability and WHOIS. If there is no visible owner contact, the report goes back as “owner unreachable.”

That’s not theoretical. I’ve seen it happen. WHOIS privacy isn’t free, the cost just doesn’t show up on your receipt.

The cost shows up as missed conversations, inbound interest that never turns into an email, and offers you never even knew existed. I am not saying everyone should turn privacy off across the board. There are good reasons to use it, especially for personal safety and high exposure names.

But I do think sellers should ask themselves a hard question. If a domain is truly for sale, is there an obvious and effortless way for a buyer to reach you right now?

WHOIS used to be a silent sales channel working in the background. A lot of us turned it off and never really replaced it with anything as simple.

And in a market where inbound demand is already tighter, adding friction is not neutral. It has consequences. It shows up in the form of missed sales, connections, and 25% commission.

 

[Hypersot]

Always on.

Maybe I'm missing something but I don't understand why someone selling a domain to not have a simple 'contact us' link or a simple redirect to a sales venue on the lander page. Both work fine.

Also,

even with privacy, any emails will still reach you.

Why risk your personal details showing up everywhere when you can avoid it?
This is especially important to us solo domainers where the address shown is actually our home address.

Talking for myself, the option for free privacy was the best thing that happened to domaining. I got tired spending ridiculous amounts of money for something that should be free in the first place.

 

[william]

I think there has been a clear trade off. Even myself, as a domainer, I am struggling to contact domain owners. Before, I could easily e-mail or call. The spam was solved by having a separate mailbox.

As an example, from my own perspective as a domain buyer, I reached out through godaddy's "contact form" 20 times and got zero responses. GoDaddy did not even let me include a message.

As a domain owner on the other hand, spammers use these contact forms, especially on Z.com to spam services. So it immediately goes to my spam box. My inquiries via e-mail are also nearly non-existent.

But maybe someone else can chime in as well.

 

[Bravo Mod Team]

Second, many buyers are not domain people. They do not know where to look next when WHOIS shows “privacy protected.”

Most non-domain people do not know about WHOIS either.

If the domain they want to buy doesn't resolve to a contact form or show as available in their registrar's search box, then they will hire a domain broker if they really want it.

 

[Vertibox]

They just move on.

That flow has slowed dramatically. Yes, some registrars offer contact forms now, but many buyers do not trust them. They do not know if the message actually goes through or disappears into a system. And plenty of people will not bother filling out a form at all.

A common scenario looks like this. A startup founder sees a domain they want while testing a brand idea. They type it into the browser, see it’s taken, and check WHOIS. If they see an email, they reach out the same day.

If they see privacy protection, that moment often ends there.

They brainstorm another name and keep moving.

Another common one: a company assigns a junior employee or assistant to research a domain. That person checks availability and WHOIS. If there is no visible owner contact, the report goes back as “owner unreachable.”

You cannot ever know that any of this is common/widespread, or the scenarios you paint are what often/usually happens, because its an impossible to know and will always be impossible to know.
So you need to be corrected on these sweeping statements.

When you claim that people "move on", you are portraying unique domain names as if they are common everyday items, like clothing, cars, food, electronics, for which many brands/models/shapes/sizes are available and you know this is not true.

Also, the idea that someone who wants a certain name will "just look for another name" if there is any kind of difficulty or perceived difficulty in contacting the owner, is just not true for the most part, because;

1. Someone who bails at the slightest bump in the road, probably wasn't that keen on the domain in the first place. And its also likely that they are not going to make a good enough offer for the name to boot.

2. Other names were likely discounted before the buyer opted for the one they sought to contact the owner about, so the idea that a buyer will quickly pursue their 2nd/3rd/4th etc., option, just because there is no landing page or "the whois is too hard" is not realistic. Business people are not flakes.

3. If a business owner/senior member of staff does assign an admin task of domain research to a junior member of staff and who gives the report of "owner unreachable", is not going to say "Oh, OK, we'll give up on that then". No, they will want a full report as to what the junior member of staff tried and what results they found. A key element of a business (the domain name) is not going to be treated like ordering stationery or coffee supplies.

4. You completely ignore the multitude of nefarious problems that come from full disclosure of contact information. Yes, spam is one problem (and which never stops), and for domain investors with hundreds or thousands of domains, the mountain of spam is simply intolerable. Plus, legitimate emails get put into spam sometimes and so if a domain investor, who does not have whois privacy and clears out their spam folder without looking through it all beforehand, may miss an offer for one of their domains as well as missing some other legitimate email.
But in addition to spam, there is ID theft, financial fraud and bank accounts accessed, all kinds of scams, telemarking and harassing phone calls, possible home visits, the discovery of other people in the domain owner's family, who could be additionally subjected to these crimes and troubles.
Do you know how exactly many people who have domain names have been affected by these crimes and troubles? No, and neither do I and we won't ever know because its too challenging to find out and not all crimes/troubles are reported. But the risks are there and so why would anyone willingly put themselves at risk?

5. Domain investors are unlikley to leave all/most of their names without any form of contact to potential buyers, becasue, errmmmm.... they want to sell their names, so they will automatically setup a way for them to be contacted. So whether they use landing pages, contact forms, or use privacy that has a privacy email address, they will have something. Therefore, this problem that you claim exists is largely an imaginary one.

There really isn't anything to be fixed as nothing is broken.

 

[pb]

> Years ago

Years ago, people who used the Internet were mostly well-versed in its technicalities. Nowadays most of the buyers have no idea what a whois is (let alone RDAP), heck, some of my buyers ask what they should do to set up a website or an e-mail in their new domain (and yes, that's after they already purchased it).

 

[pb]

But in addition to spam, there is ID theft, financial fraud and bank accounts accessed, all kinds of scams, telemarking and harassing phone calls, possible home visits, the discovery of other people in the domain owner's family, who could be additionally subjected to these crimes and troubles.

Don't forget domain theft. You can't impersonate the domain owner if you don't know who the domain owner is.

 

[alcy]

WHOIS privacy is one of those things most of us turned on without thinking twice. Registrars pushed it hard, spam was annoying, and “privacy” sounded smart. But I think a lot of sellers are underestimating what they gave up in the process.

For years, WHOIS was one of the main ways buyers figured out how to reach a domain owner. Not through landing pages. Not through marketplaces. Just a simple email address sitting there.

If someone wanted your domain, they looked it up and emailed you. That was it. That channel is mostly gone now.

And before anyone says “buyers can just use a landing page,” that assumes a few things that are not always true in the real world.

First, not every domain has a sales lander. A huge number of good domains sit parked, forwarded, or unused. Second, many buyers are not domain people. They do not know where to look next when WHOIS shows “privacy protected.”

They just move on.

I know this because I have seen it from both sides.

Years ago, I sold domains purely from WHOIS inquiries. No BIN prices. No outbound. Just emails that started with “Hi, are you the owner of…?”

Some of those turned into five figure deals.

Wholesale offers worked the same way. Other investors would notice a name, check WHOIS, and send a straight offer. Not spam. Not lowball junk. Real peer to peer messages.

That flow has slowed dramatically. Yes, some registrars offer contact forms now, but many buyers do not trust them. They do not know if the message actually goes through or disappears into a system. And plenty of people will not bother filling out a form at all.

A common scenario looks like this. A startup founder sees a domain they want while testing a brand idea. They type it into the browser, see it’s taken, and check WHOIS. If they see an email, they reach out the same day.

If they see privacy protection, that moment often ends there.

They brainstorm another name and keep moving.

You never know they existed.

Another common one: a company assigns a junior employee or assistant to research a domain. That person checks availability and WHOIS. If there is no visible owner contact, the report goes back as “owner unreachable.”

That’s not theoretical. I’ve seen it happen. WHOIS privacy isn’t free, the cost just doesn’t show up on your receipt.

The cost shows up as missed conversations, inbound interest that never turns into an email, and offers you never even knew existed. I am not saying everyone should turn privacy off across the board. There are good reasons to use it, especially for personal safety and high exposure names.

But I do think sellers should ask themselves a hard question. If a domain is truly for sale, is there an obvious and effortless way for a buyer to reach you right now?

WHOIS used to be a silent sales channel working in the background. A lot of us turned it off and never really replaced it with anything as simple.

And in a market where inbound demand is already tighter, adding friction is not neutral. It has consequences. It shows up in the form of missed sales, connections, and 25% commission.

to be clear
whois was never some main or big sale method

1 to 5% of all ever sales.

 

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Edit: @biggie posted this here.

Hi

question has been asked plenty of times

https://www.namepros.com/threads/do-you-use-domain-privacy.1135738/post-7354222

https://www.namepros.com/threads/do-you-use-private-registration.833102/post-4699095

https://www.namepros.com/threads/whois-privacy-whats-your-take.463155/post-2838925

https://www.namepros.com/threads/is-whois-protection-a-bad-idea.998645/post-5979176

imo….

 

[Vertibox]

Don't forget domain theft. You can't impersonate the domain owner if you don't know who the domain owner is.

Yes, how could I forget that one?

That reason alone is worth having whois privacy. And as criminality is seen by more and more people as a legitimate way to operate, or just to get by, in addition to the increasingly sophisticated methods people will use, there is increasing need for better protection of assets.

 

[william]

Interesting to see that many domainers prefer it that way. Maybe it's more the old schoolers like myself that enjoyed having that direct line of contact and gotten sales this way. I'd imagine if you came in later in the game, what you mostly received is spam and had quite a few options for landing pages. However, in my experience, up until the privacy protection I was still receiving quite a bit of inquires directly through e-mail in between all that spam. And that for me - was worth it.

I think the argument can be made that you can easily opt out of the privacy in most registrars. But when you manage thousands of domains, some registrars are not good at letting you manage multiple domains at once. While some registrars just to prefer to act as a gatekeeper for any contacts altogether. Additionally, buyers are being conditioned that the way to contact domainers is only through brokerages or going on to the next name altogether.