Recent Posts
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- Little interest in cheapo gTLD program
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- Web.com getting dumped
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- I get a wrongful kicking as .su registry denies turn-off plan
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- Four deadbeat registrars get terminated
- “No timeline” to retire Soviet Union from the DNS
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- Google readying its next batch of gTLD launches?
- NomCom confirms Americans rejected from ICANN board
- Nova announces $45 million of new gTLD applications
- Registry makes .ai an option for Koreans
- it.com now bigger than Guatemala
- ICANN turns to AI and crowdsourcing for new gTLD program
- Amazon lawyer DiBiase elected to ICANN board
- Is .io safe now? Identity Digital now running Mauritian ccTLD
- Tucows quits ICANN’s Whois disclosure pilot
- Toshiba goes all-in on its dot-brand
- Google scuppers Team Internet acquisition after profit warning
- .ai channel doubles under new management
- Trump inclined to back deal that threatens .io
- As .com shrinks, China adds another 1.2 million domains
- Second new gTLD contention set revealed
- UK intros global domain takedown law
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- Registries have started shutting down Whois
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- $2 million Christmas bonus for ICANN
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- ICANN hacked to promote crypto scam
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Whois officially died today
Domain registries and registrars are no longer obliged to offer Whois services as of today, the deadline ICANN set for formally sunsetting the protocol.
It’s been replaced by RDAP, the newer Registration Data Access Protocol, which offers a more structured way to deliver domain ownership information.
Under ICANN’s standard Registry Agreement and Registrar Accreditation Agreement, January 28 marks the end of the RDAP “ramp up period” and the moment Whois becomes purely optional.
I expect many registrars will offer Whois and RDAP in parallel for a while, so ingrained in internet architecture is the older protocol. Likewise, the term “Whois” will likely be used colloquially to refer to RDAP for some time.
The data delivered by RDAP is not substantially different to that delivered by Whois, and those who access Whois via a web interface, such as ICANN’s lookup.icann.org, probably won’t notice any difference.
The main headaches will likely be experienced by those using custom software to access Whois over port 43, who may find they have to tweak their code to parse incoming RDAP responses instead.
Importantly, the switch to RDAP does not mean users will get data that was already redacted in Whois. Privacy laws such as GDPR apply equally to RDAP.
The only way to obtain private data is contacting the relevant registrar, directly or via ICANN’s Registration Data Request Service, and crossing your fingers.
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WHOIS has been mostly useless for years.
It died the day that businesses were allowed to no longer list their business identity, address, and phone numbers in the database and instead hide behind “privacy” services.
I understand allowing INDIVIDUALS to not list their home information. But there should have been a restriction against businesses doing this. Too many spammers, scammers, and other malicious/unethical entities benefit from being able to hide this information.
Scammers would just register as individuals and have privacy anyways.
I like the idea of business registrations showing their data, but it would be useful in other situations like commercial disputes.