WHOIS
Short definition
Public registry of domain-name ownership records — historically required to expose registrant name, email, address, phone.
WHOIS is the directory protocol (RFC 3912) that lets anyone query the ownership records of a domain name. Historically, WHOIS data was fully public: anyone could look up which legal entity registered example.com, including their physical address, phone, and email. Post-GDPR (2018), WHOIS data for EU registrants is largely redacted by registrars; outside the EU, WHOIS-privacy services (offered by registrars for a fee) substitute the registrar's contact for the registrant's.
For offshore hosting customers, WHOIS data is one of the easier deanonymisation paths. If you register a domain with your real identity and host it offshore, your real identity is one DNS lookup away from anyone curious. Solution: pair offshore hosting with WHOIS-privacy at the registrar (most modern registrars offer this) or with an identity-wrapped registration service like Njalla, where the registrar legally owns the domain on your behalf.
Connected concepts
Adjacent definitions worth knowing in the same context.
Deploy your first offshore server in 60 seconds.
Anonymous signup. Bitcoin & Monero accepted. Provisioned across 8 jurisdictions.
No credit card required · 7-day money-back guarantee