If a registrant's personal information is protected using namecheap's WhoisGuard of Registerfly's equivalent service, who can access this information apart from the registrar itself? Under what cirumstances will anyone get access to this information.

I am considering this option for a domain name of a website that has suffered attacks that targeted mainly the domain name registrant (an open forum where users previously wrote stuff that offended some company. The company could not find out the real identity of the offending user so it tried to threat the registrant of the domain name).

I suppose that law enforcement authorities can obtain the real details, but can lawyers who just look for someone to threat but know they won't have a real case obtain access to the protected information?

Thank you

In most cases a subpeona is required to release information about the registrant. I would recommend you refer to the specific service's terms and conditions

I would recommend having a look at domainsbyproxy.com for whois privacy. They offer a full proxy service that completely hides you from dataminers. Their service was just upheld in court as well: CircleID Article (http://www.circleid.com/article/615_0_1_0_C/)

You will have to register your domain with one of their partner sites. Nuspiral.com has a pretty good deal going.

Interesting article