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I'm not sure how true this is.

I registered a new domain with Namecheap just last Thursday and it had whoisguard automatically turned on.

I think it is enabled automatically for free for the first year, but does not automatically renew, because it is not free after the first year.

Same here. I've registered a bunch of domain names with Namecheap over the last year and they all had whoisguard turned on.