Does WordPress keep the email addresses of website "owners' private?

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  saulschwartz · Member · Jan 31, 2015 at 1:05 pm

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  I recently set up a WordPress blog for a study I’m conducting. I’ve since gotten 3-4 unsolicited emails advertising the services of website developers.

  This could be a coincidence but does WordPress make available (or sell) the emails of people who have recently set up websites.

  This did not happen with previous WordPress sites that I have set up.

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  kokkieh · Staff · Jan 31, 2015 at 2:17 pm

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  Hi there. In my experience WordPress.com does keep our email private, and they also promise to do so in the privacy policy: http://automattic.com/privacy/
  http://en.support.wordpress.com/private-user-data/

  FWIW, I use a dedicated email address for my blog and I’ve never received spam at that email.

  As you don’t provide a URL for the site in question I should also mention that the above applies specifically to WordPress.com. If you have a self-hosted WordPress.org website spammers can potentially harvest your email address via your domain’s WhoIs data and your hosting provider could also sell your email to third parties depending on their privacy policies. In those cases WordPress.com has no control over it.

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  justjennifer · Member · Jan 31, 2015 at 2:35 pm

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  Just to clarify, if you purchase a domain name, whether here on WPcom or elsewhere, if you didn’t add the Private Registration option to your domain registration, your contact info is available to anyone through WhoIs.

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  kokkieh · Staff · Jan 31, 2015 at 2:38 pm

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  @justjennifer
  Thanks for cleaning up after me (again) ;-)

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  saulschwartz · Member · Jan 31, 2015 at 2:55 pm

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  OK, I’ll assume the website people are using WhoIs. Thanks.

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  kokkieh · Staff · Jan 31, 2015 at 3:00 pm

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  Many registrars will allow you to purchase private registration (sometimes via a third-party provider) to hide your personal info from the WhoIs data. Maybe find out about that.

  Here’s how private registration works if you bought the domain from WordPress.com: http://en.support.wordpress.com/domains/register-domain/#public-versus-private

  Register a New Domain

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  auxclass · Member · Jan 31, 2015 at 3:06 pm

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  I get junk that could only have came through a whois from time to time – but if you read the fine print on internet registration – sending you junk using info from whois is illegal – they are counting on you being a sucker and either buying their junk overpriced scam services or not to take legal action against them

  Used to be the junk was all through the mail – register with search engines or some other overpriced stuff – sometimes buried in the fine print was a change registrar from your current registrar to their way overpriced services