WHOIS Privacy
A registrar service that substitutes the registrant's real contact details in public WHOIS/RDAP output with the registrar's own proxy contact details, hiding personal data from scrapers.
WHOIS privacy (also called proxy or privacy/proxy service) replaces a registrant's name, address, phone, and email in public WHOIS and RDAP output with the registrar's proxy contact. The registrar still knows the real registrant; only public lookups are masked. After GDPR took effect in 2018, most registrars redact personal data for EU registrants by default. ICANN's 2023 Registration Data Policy formalised the global rules: technical, abuse, and registrant-organisation fields stay public, but personal data is redacted, and a separate request channel exists for legitimate requestors (law enforcement, IP holders). Domain transfer and abuse-handling workflows still work through the proxy email.