Whois Publicity

Due to new privacy laws around the world, domain contact data is redacted and replaced with placeholder information by default to protect against the exposure of personal information. Whois Publicity lets registrants choose to publish their real contact information in the public Whois record.

Some domain owners, including domain investors and online business owners, want their contact information to be visible on their domain’s public Whois record. Whois Publicity can help demonstrate ownership of a domain or indicate that it is available for sale.

Note: Whois Publicity is available for gTLD’s only.

• How is Whois Publicity turned on?
• Enabling Whois Publicity via the Dashboard
• Activating Whois Publicity
• Frequently asked questions
  • What contact data displays with Whois Publicity?
  • Can Whois Publicity be turned off and on?
  • Does the registrant have to consent to Publicity separately for each domain name?
  • Are there any eligibility requirements for Whois Publicity?
  • Which Whois Lookup results will be affected?
  • What happens if the domain also has ID Protect?
  • Whois Publicity status meanings

How is Whois Publicity turned on?

Whois Publicity can be added at the time of purchase or for an established domain in a two-step process.

First, the reseller must enable the service for the domain via the Dashboard or API. Both of these methods will also support bulk functionality for resellers looking to activate Whois Publicity for all domains in their account or all those belonging to a particular registrant.

Once enabled, the domain owner activates the service by providing consent for us to publish their personal data. They can do this on their Data Use Consent Settings page. A link to the Data Use Consent Settings page is sent via email as soon as a reseller enables Whois Publicity for the registrant’s domain(s).

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Enabling Whois Publicity via the Dashboard

Resellers must first enable Whois Publicity before domain owners can activate it on their domains. To equip Whois Publicity for your Enom Dashboard:

1. Log in to your Enom Dashboard.
2. Select Domains from the top toolbar and then choose My domains from the drop-down menu.
   
3. On the Domains Manager page, select the domains that you want to enable Whois Publicity on using the checkbox beside the domain name.
4. From the List Action menu in the lower left-hand corner, select Add Whois Publicity and click Go.
   
5. On the Bulk Add Services page, verify that the domains are correct and select Instant purchase or use Add to cart to walk through the checkout process or continue shopping.
   
6. The Bulk Add Services confirmation page will show the successful addition of your option to the requested domains.
   

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Activating Whois Publicity

Once Whois Publicity is enabled, the domain owner needs to activate it. They’ll be sent a link to the Data consent settings page where they can choose to equip Whois Publicity.

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Frequently asked questions

What contact data displays with Whois Publicity?

When Whois Publicity is enabled, we will display:

• All Registrant data that is required under the registry’s contract for your TLD.
• Any data that you have given us consent to process. You can provide consent through your granted Data Sharing Preferences page for in the TLD-specific consent settings.

The full data set that can be displayed in the public Whois depends on which data elements are required by the contract for your TLD, and whether you consent to the processing of additional data elements.

Full Registrant data set includes:

• First and last name
• Organization (if provided)
• Street, City, State, and Zip or Postal Code
• Country
• Phone number
• Fax number (if provided)
• Email address

Note: Only the Registrant contact data set will be published—Whois Publicy data does not display information for the domain’s Admin, Billing, or Tech contact.

Can Whois Publicity be turned off and on?

Whois Publicity can be disabled and re-enabled at any time via the Dashboard or API. Registrants can activate and deactivate the service as needed simply by changing the consent choice on their Consent Settings page.

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Does the registrant have to consent to Publicity separately for each domain name?

No, the registrant only needs to provide their consent for Whois Publicity once. If they later choose to have the Publicity service enabled on another domain, it will activate automatically as long as their consent status remains “on.” This ensures that the reseller maintains control over the services they provide, while also ensuring there is affirmative consent from the registrant to publish their data.

Are there any eligibility requirements for Whois Publicity?

Whois Publicity is available to all registrants and optional on any gTLD domain.

The service is not available for ccTLDs. Each ccTLD registry runs independently of ICANN, and most operate their own Whois Lookup and maintain complete control over the output provided.

Which Whois Lookup results will be affected? 

Registrars and registries share their Whois data via “port 43 Whois servers.” Enom will make the registrant data for all publicity-activated domains on a platform accessible through this standard connection. Any Whois lookup service that pulls results from the Enom Whois server, via port 43, will return the registrant details for any of our publicity-activated domains.

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What happens if the domain also has ID Protect? 

If both ID Protect and Whois Publicity are active on the same domain, ID Protect will always take priority. Queries for the domain in the public Whois will return the ID Protect fields instead of the registrant’s real information. ID Protect must be disabled for Whois Publicity to take effect.

Whois Publicity status meanings

You’re able to see the status of Whois Publicity on your Domain Management page by hovering over the Whois Publicity icon.

Here are the possible status options that may display within the Control Panel and what they mean:

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