Tag Archives: whois

Fri 8th January 2016
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Another unfortunate Whois information service - Internet marketer selling access to whois data. Many people are selling cheap access to whois information culled from recently registered domain names. Now an internet marketer is getting into the act. A new service called FreshDomainLeads.com promises members daily sales leads in the form of whois records of newly registered domain names. A video for the service says it provides ‘legal access’ to the bulk information and that ‘domain name registration info is public by law’. I think they’re ... read more ...
Mon 7th December 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
New TLDs, Whois and IANA with Michele Neylon – DNW Podcast #61 - The perspectives of a mid-sized domain name registrar. Michele Neylon runs Irish hosting and domain name company Blacknight. On today’s show, he gives thoughts on new TLDs from the perspective of a mid-sized domain name registrar…and you’ll find his perspective to be really interesting. We also discuss WHOIS and the IANA transition. Also: China clamps down on .com domain names, a banner month for .Club, big Rightside investors and an agency that .Rocks. Subscribe via iTunes to listen to the ... read more ...
Thu 5th November 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Trans-Pacific Partnership Treaty addresses cybersquatting, Whois - Countries would need a UDRP-like system for ccTLDs and online access to an accurate Whois. The text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership treaty has been released, and it has a couple requirements related to the countries’ country code domain names. Article 18.28 addresses domain names (pdf). Each country that is a party to the treaty must offer a mechanism for handling cybersquatting claims that is along the lines of the UDRP. They also must offer “online public access to a reliable and accurate ... read more ...
Thu 3rd September 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Here's one source behind a proliferation of Whois marketing - Cheap, fresh whois data is leading to increased spam and telemarketing. I usually keep my iPhone on “do not disturb” mode at night. But not on August 16. My wife was traveling, so I kept it on in case she needed to reach me. At 4:19 in the morning, my phone pinged and woke me up. It wasn’t my wife. It was this text message: The text message I received was from Devan Crow, who owns a Florida business called SkyNet Group LLC. For $500 a quarter (or less for longer term subscriptions), Crow ... read more ...
Tue 7th July 2015
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Google Hates ICANN's Attempt to Eliminate Whois Privacy Calling it "Impractical & Ineffective -   Google filed it’s comment on the whois privacy issue with ICANN today. Google  seems to hate the proposal of the ICANN working group to prohibit  commercial domain registrants from using proxy or privacy services calling it unfair to small businesses and individuals. Google even cites it’s own Charleston Road Registry an example of how big companies will still be able to use shell companies to hide ownership of domain names,  something small businesses and individuals will not be able ... read more ...
Mon 29th June 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Spamming owners of newly purebred domain names - Just one example of spam based on whois records. We all know that people mine whois databases to sell stuff. It’s incredibly cheap and easy to do these days: compare the zone files, get the new registrations, and then run whois lookups. There are even people selling the entire .com whois database for a few hundred bucks. This makes it easy for people to spam new domain name registrants and sell them services they don’t need, like search engine submission. Last week I registered a handful of .com ... read more ...
Wed 12th November 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Major Chinese transport sites Ctrip.com and eLong.com go down due to domain change [updated] - Domains stop resolving after placed in clienthold status. The websites for two major publicly traded Chinese travel sites went down today as a result of their domain names being place in “ClientHold” status at the registrar. Sites for $8 billion (market cap) Ctrip.com (NASDAQ: CTRP) and $0.6 billion eLong.com both were unavailable this morning United States time. Both domain names were placed on “clienthold”, a status that tells the registry to not activate ... read more ...
Mon 8th September 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Only use WHOIS services we trust - Few things in life are truly free, including whois data websites. There are a lot of great sites out there for doing whois lookups. DomainTools, for example, has long been a great source to lookup a domain and get extraneous information about the domain/site. But you need to be careful which sites you use if you value your privacy. Non-registrar whois sites make money in one or more ways: advertising, subscription fees, data collection. If you don’t see advertising ... read more ...
Wed 11th June 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Will WHOIS be assassinated? - 166 page report describes plan to completely scrap WHOIS as we know it. Last year I wrote about a plan to scrap Whois as we know it and replace it with a new Registration Directory Service (RDS). The initial proposal, created by an ICANN working group, was rather complicated and 49 pages long. Now the Expert Working Group has issued its final report. It weighs in at 166 pages and is sure to be a hot topic at the upcoming ICANN meeting in London. I read the executive ... read more ...
Fri 6th December 2013
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
How did Verisign accommodate the 100% SLA on .com Whois in June? - Despite Whois problems in June, Verisign reported meeting its SLA for .com. Each month Verisign and the other domain name registries submit reports to ICANN that include their uptime and performance numbers. One of the Service Level Agreements (SLAs) for Verisign’s .com contract is 100% uptime for Whois. While reviewing recent registry reports this week I was surprised to see that Verisign reported it met its 100% SLA in June. You may recall that Verisign had ... read more ...
Tue 20th August 2013
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Who owns a domain names ICANN Labs is using? - ICANN Labs is rolling out experimental websites, but it isn’t the registrant of the domain names it’s using. ICANN Labs is ICANN’s attempt to introduce innovation in four areas: discovery, conversation, communication, and education. ICANN has partnered with web developer/product designer Neo on the venture. Regardless of whether this ends up being a fruitful venture, you can be sure that any domain names used for ICANN Labs will be registered with best practices. Or ... read more ...
Tue 25th June 2013
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
What a provocative WHOIS news means for domain investors - Sweeping changes to registrant data could have major impact on domain name investors. ICANN’s working group on gTLD Directory Services released its initial report overnight. If I were to use one word to describe the report, it would be “provocative”. I just finished reading the 49 page report that describes a way to upend WHOIS as we know it and replace it with an Aggregated Registration Data Service (ARDS). Calling it something completely different than the ... read more ...
Sun 2nd June 2013
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Verisign whois secretly returning “no match” results - Have to submit query twice to get correct result on Verisign’s whois. Verisign’s whois service for .com and .net is sometimes falsely returning a result of “no match” the initial time you search for a domain name. For example, if you search for DNW.com on Verisign’s site or via port 43 whois, you’ll get a “no match” result the first time. Click “search” a second time and the correct whois will be returned. You can see example screenshots on the ... read more ...
Fri 1st February 2013
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
If ICANN and WIPO can’t approve with WHOIS, who can? - Technically ICANN and WIPO’s whois records aren’t compliant. Since the meltdown of Registerfly.com several years ago, ICANN has continued to promise to better police compliance with the registrar accreditation agreement (RAA), including the WHOIS provisions of the RAA. I have recently heard that one of the clauses of the RAA which ICANN Compliance is looking at is this one: 3.7.7.1 The Registered Name Holder shall provide to Registrar accurate and reliable contact ... read more ...
Tue 8th February 2011
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICANN Considers Bringing Whois Escrow In House - ICANN considers future of Registrar Data Escrow Program. Domain Name Wire has learned that ICANN is considering handling whois escrow services internally. Registrar Data Escrow Program (RDE) is currently managed by Iron Mountain Intellectual Property Management, a third party. Its contract ends in November. RDE is a program that escrows a registrar’s whois information in case of registrar failure. In a survey sent to domain name registrars, ICANN asks respondents ... read more ...
Fri 2nd October 2009
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
15%-25% of Domain Names are Registered with Masked Whois - Study examines use of privacy and proxy services. A new report (pdf) released by ICANN yesterday says that 15%-25% of all registered domain names use some sort of service to mask whois information. The study found that the majority of people masking whois use a proxy service, which means an entity actually registers the domain on the domain “owner’s” behalf, and then leases it to that owner. Only 15% use privacy services, which mask some of the whois information ... read more ...
Mon 28th September 2009
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICANN Wants to Trap WHOIS Abusers for Study - Group sends our RFP for whois abuse study. ICANN, through Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO), is seeking proposals from qualified companies to study whois abuse. One of its proposed mechanisms for studying abuse is to set up a number of test domain names to see what happens to the whois data created for them. A similar study (pdf) was conducted in 2007, but only to research whois harvesting for spam. In the new study, GNSO will also check for postal/phone ... read more ...
Tue 1st September 2009
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Network Solutions Displays Customers’ Whois Queries to a Public - Domain registrar displays customers’ whois lookups for all to see. Here’s an interesting new “feature” on Network Solutions’ web site: a list of domain name whois searches performed by customers in the past day. That’s right. Do a whois lookup on Network Solutions and you can tip your hat to thousands of onlookers. Think of all of the fun things you could do with this information: …Figure out domains people are looking to buy and beat them to it …Find ... read more ...
Mon 5th May 2008
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Canada Leading a Way with Whois Changes - .Ca is getting a whois overhaul. Perhaps the rest of the domain world can use it as a framework. There have been a number of suggested changes to ICANN’s whois framework. But Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) is making changes to its .ca country code on its own. Canada-based domain registrar Tucows (AMEX: TCX) is reporting that CIRA will make sweeping changes to its whois policies on June 10: -Whois registrant data will be made private by default. ... read more ...
Tue 11th March 2008
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
5 Ways To Use DomainTools - If you aren’t using DomainTools, here are 5 ways to get started. DomainTools, a product of Name Intelligence, is perhaps the most powerful repository of data for domainers. Here are five ways I use the site: 1. Verify ownership of big ticket domains. When I’m buying an expensive domain I like to verify that the person I’m buying it from actually owns it. DomainTools’ historical whois tool lets you see the whois record for a domain name. This feature prevented ... read more ...