GoDaddy, the largest domain registrar in the world, announced that it has extended privacy protection to customers from the US. This means that Whois records will not show the email addresses and phone numbers of US customers. Previously, such protection was only available to their counterparts in the European Union, because two years ago the EU adopted the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Failure to comply, including the disclosure of users’ contact information in Whois records, can result in a large fine.
Domain Incite notes that GoDaddy had such privacy settings all along, but they were only available for a fee, which meant American registrant organizations had to pay to hide their contact information from Whois records, while the protection was free for their EU counterparts. It took GoDaddy two years to fix the situation. However, American privacy customers are reportedly to be offered a partial refund or the chance to upgrade to a service that also includes two-factor authentication and malware scans among other benefits.
