Should hiding the ownership of a domain name count as a negative against a website by Google?  Websites hiding their ownership have a higher probability of being spam, fake or trying to mislead visitors.  I know whenever I look up the ownership of a domain name and I see that it’s hidden, it lowers my trust of the website slightly.  It takes some effort to look up every website, but isn’t that the type of effort and homework that search engines are trying to do in order to recognize who to trust programmatically?

There are legitimate reasons for hiding the ownership of a domain name, especially in some industries.  I understand the need for privacy.  But if you’re in an industry that requires privacy and everyone hides their identity, it’s not really hurting you if it’s applied consistently.  Why wouldn't Google want to essentially reward sites that are more open and honest?  If their goal is to create the best user experience, wouldn't it make sense to include that into the mix?

We already know that Google collects domain name information and became a registrar so they would have better access to domain name information.  They’re looking at the ownership of domain names for clues about their authority already.  The question therefore probably isn’t why would they use that, the question is why wouldn't they use information they already have if it could be an indicator or trustworthiness? 

I’m not in the SEO industry so if this has already been discussed I apologize because I couldn't find it.  I just thought of this when I looked up another supposedly credible website hiding the ownership information and I realized that this is a red flag to me so it probably is or should be for Google too.