DNS Belgium, the not for profit registry for .be, has made changes to their public whois. From now on the telephone number of registrants will no longer be displayed in public whois. The change will impact all .be domain names, whether they are registered to a natural person (ie. a private individual) or a legal person such as a company or other organisation. If you … [Read more...] about Belgian (.be) Registry Removes Phones Numbers From Public Whois
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Whois is Officially Dead (Bonus – so is the fax!)
For the last few years registries of both names and numbers have been rolling out new technologies. One of the areas that was long due an upgrade was the protocol for displaying registration data. For the past 30 or so years both names and numbers have used "whois" to tell you who a domain or IP address was linked to. Sure, it "worked", but it was far from ideal. Every registry … [Read more...] about Whois is Officially Dead (Bonus – so is the fax!)
ICANN Releases Open Source RDAP Compliance Tool
ICANN has released the code for an RDAP conformance tool. The tool was developed for ICANN by Viagénie, who had already released a mobile RDAP client. It's good to see that the code is being released as open source under an Apache license. Both registries and registrars in the gTLD world are contractually obliged to run RDAP servers. Eventually these will replace whois … [Read more...] about ICANN Releases Open Source RDAP Compliance Tool
ICANN Asks European Data Protection Board if Universal Access Model Viable
ICANN has written to the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) to see if a "Universal Access Model" for domain name registration data is possible under GDPR. The letter, which was sent on Friday, also includes two other documents: Exploring a Unified Access Model for gTLD Registration DataTSG01: Technical Model for Access to NonPublic Registration Data In a blog post … [Read more...] about ICANN Asks European Data Protection Board if Universal Access Model Viable
Check the new “Whois” From Your Mobile
Whois is being deprecated in favour of a more modern technology. The new solution for handling domain name registration data is called RDAP (Registration Data Access Protocol) and it is designed for machines to read and handle. It's not meant for direct human consumption. While some web browsers might be able to display the RDAP output in a human readable format many can't … [Read more...] about Check the new “Whois” From Your Mobile
New Zealand’s ccTLD Taking on DomainTools in Court – Video
As I mentioned several months ago, the .nz ccTLD registry Domain Name Commission is taking legal action against several companies that have been harvesting whois data for years. They were granted a preliminary injunction and were in court in person a few days ago. You can watch the legal pleadings from both sides in the video below: Personally I find the arguments from … [Read more...] about New Zealand’s ccTLD Taking on DomainTools in Court – Video
APWG & M3AAWG Survey on Whois Challenges in InfoSec
The APWG and M3AAWG recently conducted a survey among their members and the broader infosec community to get an understanding of how WHOIS changes had impacted security investigators. The survey results come from just over 300 participants' responses. Both organisations have formally written to ICANN and are asking that ICANN make several fundamental changes to the … [Read more...] about APWG & M3AAWG Survey on Whois Challenges in InfoSec
ICANN Sues German Registrar Over GDPR
ICANN announced Friday that it is pursuing legal action in Germany against Epag. Epag is owned by Tucows, who are one of the largest registrars in the world. So what is going on? Why is ICANN taking legal action against a registrar? According to the announcement from ICANN the action is "to preserve whois data". However it's not that simple. ICANN has been … [Read more...] about ICANN Sues German Registrar Over GDPR
Nominet GDPR Consultation Closes Tomorrow
Nominet, the registry for .uk, is conducting a consultation on how it will handle whois data once GDPR comes into force. It's worth noted that the consultation is only related to the *.uk namespace and is not about any of the gTLD registries on the Nominet platform. While that is the main focus of the current consultation they're also using it as an opportunity to make a few … [Read more...] about Nominet GDPR Consultation Closes Tomorrow
ICANN Writes to ALL European Union Privacy Authorities
In what could be viewed as an unprecedented move, ICANN has written to each and every data protection authority in the European Union. Why? ICANN feels that there is uncertainty about how the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) should impact registrars and registries specifically in relation to the collection, processing and retention of domain name registration … [Read more...] about ICANN Writes to ALL European Union Privacy Authorities