WordPress Embraces Private Domains

In their never ending quest to thwart spammers online, Automattic (the company behind WordPress.com) has announced that bloggers on custom domains can purchase private registration in order to prevent spammers, trolls and (God forbid) stalkers from contacting you with unwanted messages.

Starting today you can add the private registration upgrade when you buy a domain, or if you have an existing domain registered on WordPress.com you can make it private at any time. If your domain expires in less than six months in the current year you’ll get the rest of the year free but you will have to renew the domain and cover the cost of the privacy upgrade for the remainder of the domain’s lifetime. […]
The private domain registrations upgrade costs $8 a year and you must purchase the upgrade for the length of time your domain is registered for. (Official WordPress Blog)

Private registration is probably a good idea for any blogger (regardless of platform), as the last thing you want is an angry commenter filling up your voice mail or email with silly statements at 2 AM in the morning.

While private registration will not prevent law enforcement from contacting you, it may help bloggers retain some semblance of privacy, as well as help pen bloggers keep their identity secret.

Update: Changed image. Image Credit: Norebbo

Darnell Clayton

Darnell Clayton is a geek who discovered blogging long before he heard of the word "blog" (he called them "web journals" then). When he is not tweeting, friendfeeding, or blogging about space, he enjoys running, reading and describing himself in third person.

View Comments (6)

Frank Adams says:

July 31, 2010 at 3:13 am

This is one thing every WordPress blog owner needs to have. Spammers are actually inevitable here in the internet but there are still a lot of ways to prevent them from swarming your blog. Just be a consistent with your blog and always update it and moderate every post and comment. That way, an owner will be able to counter spam.
Jeff says:

July 31, 2010 at 11:27 am

Superb! An absolute must have!!
Matt says:

August 2, 2010 at 10:59 pm

Fauxgo alert! Check out http://wordpress.org/about/logos/
Darnell Clayton says:

August 3, 2010 at 12:02 am

Thanks Matt! Image has been replaced! (this one looks better).
James Saperia says:

August 6, 2010 at 10:16 pm

The cynic in me sees this as an easy $8 for Automattic/WordPress.com. The spammers will find a way through, you’ve just got to accept it and try and stay one step ahead of them.
Darnell Clayton says:

August 16, 2010 at 4:48 pm

@ James: Unless those spammers have a warrant to find your personal info, I highly doubt it.

As far as the $8 goes, that is what Domain by proxy costs (which is owned by GoDaddy by the way). If own your own domain elsewhere, by all means use your registers service (especially if its cheaper).