Cloudflare: More Privacy, Less Clutter: Important Updates to Your Domain Contact Info

Your domain name is the cornerstone of your online identity. It's your address on the web, and protecting it is a top priority for us. That's why we're excited to announce some important, privacy-focused updates to how domain name contact information is managed, in line with new policies from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

Effective immediately, we are rolling out these changes automatically. Here’s a simple breakdown of what's new and what it means for you.

What’s Changing with Your Domain Data?

These updates are designed to enhance your privacy and streamline the domain registration process by minimizing the amount of your personal data that is publicly available or stored in our system.

1. Your Organization Name is Now Private by Default

Previously, if you registered a domain under a company or organization name, that name was often visible in the public WHOIS database (the internet's public directory for domains).

• The Change: For generic top-level domains (gTLDs like .com, .net, .org), the organization listed in your registrant contact will no longer be visible in a public WHOIS lookup. This adds an important layer of privacy for your business or project. (Note: If you have previously chosen to make your organization public, your settings will remain the same).

2. We're Collecting Less Information (Data Minimization)

In the past, registering a domain often required you to provide four different contacts: registrant (the owner), administrative, billing, and technical. Managing all of them could be a hassle.

• The Change: We will now only collect the absolute minimum contact data required by each specific domain registry. For the vast majority of domains, this will simply be the registrant contact. This simplifies the registration process and means you have less data to keep updated. Some country-code domains (ccTLDs) may still require additional contacts, and we will only collect them when necessary.

3. Unnecessary Data is Being Removed

As part of our commitment to your data privacy, we believe in only holding onto information that is essential.

• The Change: Any extra contact information in our system that is no longer required by a registry—such as old administrative or technical contacts for gTLDs—will be permanently deleted. This reduces your data footprint and ensures we're only storing what's absolutely necessary.

Do You Need to Do Anything?

No. You do not need to take any action.

These positive changes are being implemented automatically across our system. Your domains will continue to function without any interruption.

We believe these updates are a significant step forward for domain owner privacy and data security. By reducing the amount of publicly available information and simplifying the data we collect, we're helping to create a safer and more streamlined online experience for you.

If you have any questions about these changes, feel free to reach out to our support team!