How do I keep my privacy when owning a website?

When you register a domain, you provide certain personal information to the domain registrar. The registrar uses this information to create a 'whois' record for the domain name. This record is used by ICANN, the organization that polices domain names, to maintain organization and resolve disputes. It's worth noting though, that these records are stored in publicly accessible databases. For example, Who.is and Whois.sc.

Whois records include the contact information of the domain name owner.

Since these records are public, it's completely normal to be nervous about what nefarious folks might do with your information. In order to protect your personal contact information from being shared openly with the internet, you'll want to register your domain with a registrar that offers private registration or whois protection. These work by redacting your personal information and replacing it with a forwarding service that can be used for legitimate purposes - without having to expose your identity to the public.

It's worthwhile to note here that private registration is not free…it adds to the cost of registering your domain. That being said, private registration will shield your name, address, telephone number and email addresses from some very bad actors (looking at you Vlad!) and their minions who are engaged in some very nasty stuff.

It's worth the extra cost, IMHO. My personal domain is nearly 20 years old…all that time with private registration.

-- sw

It's worth the extra cost, IMHO

Totally agree. I’ve registered domains in the past and within hours have received spam phone calls. Now I always opt for privacy.

Namecheap include domain privacy in all their registrations, free of charge. And their registration fees are pretty decent too.

https://www.namecheap.com/security/domain-privacy-service/