As you may have heard, ICANN – the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, has introduced a new Whois Accuracy policy, which all ICANN-accredited registrars are required to abide by.

As per this policy’s regulations, each registrar must validate the Registrant contact information for all generic TLDs (gTLDs) – .COM, .NET, .ORG, .INFO, .BIZ, .ASIA, .PRO, .MOBI and .NAME.

When is Whois validation needed?

Whois validation will be needed in the following cases:

• new registrations;
• transfers of existing domains;
• registrant contact information changes;

What is the Whois validation procedure like?

We have implemented an automated system for sending white-labeled Whois validation emails in all of the above-mentioned cases.

It works like this:

In any of the three cases, we will immediately send a verification email to the new Registrant email address specified for the domain.

The verification email will come from domains@propersupport.com with the following subject: “Whois verification for customer-domain.com”

The email will contain a verification link like this: http://whoisaccuracy.liquidnetlimited.com/

The domain owner will need to verify the email address by clicking on the link within 15 calendar days after the registration/transfer initiation or the Whois update.

If the verification link is not followed immediately, we will send another two reminder emails on the 7th and on the 14th day after the Whois update.

What happens if the validation does not go through?

If the customer does not verify their contact details within 15 calendar days, the domain will be suspended, and the DNS servers used by the domain name will be changed.

The domain will resolve into a landing page (an example is shown below) with detailed instructions on how the verification can be made, how the DNS settings can be reset and how your customer’s website can be restored.

In the Domain Manager section of the Control Panel, the domain name will be in a Pending Whois Validation status.

NB: Once the verification process is completed, all future new registrations using that same Registrant contact information will be considered as verified and will not be subject to the validation process.

Nonetheless, your customers will need to make sure that the contact information is kept valid, up to date and complete and that the email address is functioning.

Are ID-protected domains affected?

At this time, domain names for which the Whois/ID Protection service has been enabled are not subject to Whois verification. If there is an update in ICANN’s policy on this, we will make sure to inform you.

However, if Whois/ID Protection is disabled for your domain (either manually or automatically due to expiration), this will trigger the verification email, as the ID-protected contact details will no longer show up upon a Whois lookup and your very own contact details will be displayed instead.

What should I do if I do not receive a validation email?

If, for some reason, you or your customers do not get a Whois validation email, you could contact the support team through the ticketing system to ask for the email to be re-sent.

Extra ICANN regulations on Whois Accuracy:

In addition to requiring complete Whois details and Registrant contact data validation, ICANN has mandated that the following Registrant Whois details be properly formatted:

The First/ Last name should contain a minimum of 2 letters.

The Email address should be specified in lower-case letters; the @ symbol and a fully qualified domain are required: example@domain.com

The Phone number must contain a country code and a valid number.

An Address, a City and a Country must be provided. Blank fields may cause the registration order to fail.

A State and/or a Province should be specified whenever applicable.

The Zip/ Postal code should be numeric or alphanumeric and may contain dash “-“. The format should be applicable to your country or territory.

To make sure that the extra Whois accuracy regulations of ICANN are observed too, we have adjusted our real-time Whois data verification procedure to the new format requirements.

All in all, we have tried our best to ensure full compliance with the new Whois Accuracy rules of ICANN on behalf of your hosting store, so no action on your end will be needed whatsoever.