I was thinking about getting hosting via IPage.com and it has a box you click for "Domain Privacy - Strongly Recomended" but it is another 8.99/yr. What is this? And is it necessary? Also any comments on using Ipage as a host would be nice since I have never used them before.

Just the usual playing on peoples fears to get money out of them.

"whois" records are public, so the addresses, telephone numbers, etc in the domain record can be seen by anyone.

If it is your private address you may want to "hide" it, if it's a company address does it matter?

No need to hide... Moreover some domain name registrars can offer you that feature absolutely free of charge

Be aware if you are doing something wrong you will be discovered in any case

One of the requirements for owning a domain name is having your contact information in the WHOIS database, including your e-mail address, home address and phone number. This regulation has opened the way for Spammers and con artists to target you. As a defense, hosting companies came up with Domain Privacy.

Simply, they put their information in instead of yours and take the Spam/JunkMail/Calls instead. Some charge for it; some are free. All let you turn it off at any time (and you should before transferring the domain to another registrar).

dont waste your money. as long as you plan on being legal with the name you have nothing to worry about.

Like others have said, unless you are running some sort of adult site or something then it is pretty well a waste of $$$$$.

I have always felt private whois entries to be a bit suspect!

The whole whois db setup is already screwed up. Why do you have to put your name and information in public record? I can understand the gov’t needing it for ownership claims, but to have it so easily accessible to the rest of the world is stupid. If I’m registering a domain for personal use, I don’t want to broadcast my home address to the world! I also don’t want to use my work address because then there are potential issues with who owns it (the owner of the address, or me?).

What has the/a government got to do with it?

The intention of the "whois" information being public is to give trademark owners the opportunity to contact registrants in the case of infringements.