[stratosgear]

You bet it is!

I was also emailed:

At Namecheap, we care about your privacy and are now giving ALL our Namecheap customers FREE WhoisGuard for life, when they register a domain* with us. This important change supports our strong belief in privacy, security, freedom and the equal treatment for all internet users.

Suddenly, they care about my privacy, whereas all the previous years they were soliciting subscriptions to their WhoisGuard service with each new registration or renewal order.

What a coincidence! And what an unfortunate choice of wording to their existing customers. (Apparently, I was very upset when I got this emailed)

[JumpCrisscross]

Per another comment [1], these free WhoisGuard services do not seem to apply to multiple European TLDs (e.g. .fr).

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17178559

[lexalizer]

Expect the domain renewal price to include this cost in the future.

[eli]

It doesn't really cost much to provide. I think it was just an easy upsell.