question WHOIS Privacy Question

[Mojavejava]

I'm planning to register some .COM domain names for projects I'm planning, and the best price I've been able to find is $5 but that doesn't include privacy. I expect it will take anywhere from 4 months to a couple of years before the websites for these domain names will be ready. If I register the domains today without privacy to save money, and then later when the site goes live, either add privacy or transfer the domain to another registrar that includes privacy, will it be possible for someone to look up the domain's registration history somewhere and get my name and contact info from the time when I didn't have WHOIS privacy enabled?

Thanks in advance for your input.

 

[Kuffy]

Yes - there are sites that store historic whois info.

 

[Mojavejava]

Yes - there are sites that store historic whois info.

Thanks, good to know.

 

[Justin Matmor]

It depends who you are trying to hide from. Your normal visitor who may just do a whois check wouldn't know how to check the history.

 

[carob]

Several registrars offer free privacy under $10 per domain, I don't see the point in saving $4 to open yourself up to spammers scammers and nuisance phone calls.

 

[Justin Matmor]

Namesilo and uniregistry offer free privacy

 

[FanCube]

who.is and DomainTools keep historical records. No option to opt out as far as I know.

The two well established registrars NameCheap and Name.com (with coupon privacyplease) offers free WHOIS privacy for the first year (renewal in the range of $2-3).