Registration privacy

When you buy a domain, you choose a privacy setting. This setting determines how much of the personal contact information you provided when you registered your domain is available in WHOIS lookup:
  • Privacy protection on: Does not provide your personal contact information
  • Privacy protection off: Provides some or all of your personal contact information.

Depending on the registry, some information (organization name, address, and email ID) might be shown or hidden in WHOIS no matter what the privacy protection setting is.

About privacy protection

Privacy protection helps you avoid spam and protect your contact information. When privacy protection is on, someone looks up your domain in WHOIS sees alternate contact information provided by a third-party privacy provider. For example:

  • [encrypted_string]@example.com.[privacy_provider]
  • owner@example.com.[privacy_provider]  
Using privacy protection means you agree to the terms of service for your third-party provider: Contact Privacy is the provider for domain endings where Google Domains is the registrar of record, and WhoisProxy is the provider for domain endings where Key Systems is the registrar of record. To find out who your registrar is, check the list of domain endings.
 
If your privacy protection is provided by Contact Privacy, email correspondence is only forwarded if it's submitted via the https://contactprivacy.email website. If your privacy protection is provided by WhoisProxy, emails sent to the alternate email address are forwarded to the WHOIS email address you provided.

How to change your privacy setting

Some domain endings don't support privacy protection. To confirm it's available your domain, check the list of domain endings.

To change your privacy setting at any time, follow these steps: 

  1. Open Google Domains.
  2. Select the name of your domain.
  3. Open the menu Menu.
  4. Click Registration settings.
  5. Scroll to Privacy protection.
  6. Select a privacy option:
    • Privacy protection on (private registration)
    • Privacy protection off (public registration)
Note: Depending on your domain, you might have the option to limit the personal information that's available to the public, or make all your contact information public.

Privacy settings for specific domain endings

.COM and .NET

Domains that end with .COM and .NET automatically hide some registration information in WHOIS lookups, even if privacy protection is off. By default, only the following information shows:

  • Organization name
  • State/province

  • Country 

You can show all your information publicly with .COM and .NET domains. To publish all information, follow these steps:

  1. Change your privacy registration setting to Privacy protection off.
  2. Select Make all contact information public.
  3. In the consent dialog, select Yes, make it public.

.FR

Domains that end in .FR follow the publication policies set by AFNIC, the registry for .FR domain names. This means:

  • Domain names ending in .FR are not eligible for privacy protection.
  • Contact information for individual registrants is hidden in WHOIS lookups, unless you make your information public.
  • Contact information for organization registrants is shown in WHOIS lookups. A registrant is considered an organization if it provided information in the "Organization" field for the registrant, administrator, or technical contact when registering for a .FR domain name.

If you are an individual registrant, you can choose to show all your information publicly. To publish all information, follow these steps:

  1. Go to the privacy registration setting for the domain.
  2. Select Make all contact information public.
  3. In the consent dialog, select Yes, make it public.
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