As you may know, it is always mandatory to keep your holder information accurate and up to date. Therefore, it is not possible to register a domain name anonymously. Until recently, it only depended on the domain extension whether the holder information of a domain name could be found through a WHOIS lookup.
More and more domain extensions are moving away from this and now use Consent for Publishing (also known as WHOIS Opt-In or Data Publication Agreement), following the ICANN Registration Data Policy. With this, all information is hidden by default, and you can choose to give permission for certain holder details to be made publicly visible via a WHOIS lookup.
How this is implemented may vary per registrar and domain extension. Sometimes you can specify this during domain registration, or you may receive an email to change your preference.
For .com, .net, .info, .biz and .org domains registered at TransIP via the provider REGISTER S.P.A., you will receive an email upon registration, transfer, or holder change, containing a button/link to a page where you can check or uncheck per field whether the information may be made public. By default, all information is hidden, so if you make no changes, all WHOIS information will remain hidden.
You can check this by performing a WHOIS lookup via our website for your domain name. If you then see Registrar: REGISTER S.P.A, it is possible to change your Consent for Publishing. If you see Registrar: Key-Systems GmbH, it is currently not possible to change your Consent for Publishing. No worries: even in that case, holder details for private individuals are hidden by default.
The link is valid for 8 hours from the time it was sent. Has it been more than 8 hours and you can no longer change your Consent for Publishing settings? Contact support, and they can have a new email sent to the domain holder’s email address.