ICANN Says It Is Not an Internet Enforcement Agency

ICANN says domain name issues are not always a matter of contractual compliance... "There remain occasional misconceptions about ICANN's authority. Some appear to believe ICANN is an Internet enforcement agency, with broad power to shut down websites, restrict website content, and penalize Internet users for unethical behavior. This is not the case," says a section from ICANN's July magazine. more»

Canadian Domain Whois Policy Changes Face Opposition from Law Enforcement

Sweeping changes to Canada's country code top-level domain, .ca, will put the country on the vanguard of Internet privacy. But while law enforcement isn't happy about potentially losing an important investigative tool, the half-million Canadians whose personal information is currently publicly available on the Internet shouldn't rest easy that they are safe from wired snoops. more»

ICANN Responds to "Worst Spam Offenders" and the Recent Knujon Report

ICANN has made an official announcement following earlier reports which suggested domain names registered by most spam sites where linked to a handful of domain registrars. From the ICANN Annoucement: "ICANN has sent enforcement notices and notices of concern to certain registrars, including those reported this week as being the registrars for the majority of websites advertised in spam emails... more»

Google Re-Introduces WHOIS Search

Google, in partnership with DomainTools, is now offering a Whois search capability which allows users to find registration and expiration dates of domain names when followed by the word 'whois' in Google's search box. A similar short-lived service was offered by Google a few years ago. more»

Canada's New Policy Will Privatize Whois Data for .ca Domains

Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) has posted its Change of Privacy Status... "As of June 10, 2008 the dot-ca (.ca) WHOIS will no longer release information about individual Registrants and their Adminstrative and Technical contacts, providing more thorough privacy protection for many of our Registrants." more»

Getting Rid of Whois

The Whois database may disappear... An ICANN committee is considering a sunset proposal at its meeting this week in Los Angeles that would effectively scrap the directory system on privacy grounds. Among those arguments is that a public-by-default Whois listing may run afoul of Canadian and European Union privacy laws. more»

ICANN Investigating "Domain Name Front Running"

ICANN is investigating complaints that insider information is being used to snatch desired domain names before an individual or business can register them. The Security and Stability Advisory Committee of ICANN termed the practice "domain name front running" and likened it to a stock broker buying or selling shares ahead of a client's trade, in anticipation of a movement in price. In the case of Internet addresses, many people who see a domain name available the first time they check find it already taken by the time they return to buy it. more»

Dot Name Domain Registry Charging for Whois Access, Security Researchers Not Happy

The company that manages the .name top-level domain registry is charging for access to domain registration information (Whois data), a step that security researchers say frustrates their ability to police the Internet and creates a haven for hackers who run internet scams. more»

Dispute Over Western Sahara's .EH

Is Western Sahara a part of Morocco or is it truly independent? Never really settled in the real world, an old dispute now has repercussions on the Internet as two governments fight for one of the last unassigned country codes. Undelegated extensions -- ones that haven't been assigned to anyone yet -- are like 2 character .COMs: extremely rare... more»

Whois Privacy for Domain Owners Moves Forward

Help may be on the way as the Whois task force last week endorsed a proposal that would give more privacy options to small businesses, individuals with personal websites and other domain name owners.

"At the end of the day, they are not going to have personal contact information on public display," said Ross Rader, a task force member and director of retail services for registration company Tucows Inc. "That's the big change for domain name owners." more»

ICANN Likely to Adopt New Whois Privacy Policy

Intellectual property lawyers guarding corporate trademarks on the Internet may soon have a harder time tracking down the people behind websites infringing on their clients' brands.

After several years of debate, this year ICANN is likely to decide on adopting a new policy that would let website owners keep most of their contact information confidential when they register for domain names. Instead, they would be allowed to list a separate go-between point of contact. more»

"ip who is" Among Google's Top Searches in 2006

On Google's annual top 10 list of the hottest search words and phrases, "ip who is" has taken the top 10 spot in "Who is..." category. Google does not reveal how many searches it takes to reach the top 10, but it said millions of searches are conducted each day. more»

Your Whois Search May Be Monitored by Third Parties

" ...my next step in testing was to go to the four hosting services meta-searched by CNet and search them directly with new domain names also picked out of thin air. Two days later they haven't been taken.

At this point I have to say I don't know exactly what's happening, but something fishy is going on. With a whole lot more testing, I think I could figure out the source of Chesterton's domain name feed, but I decided it was time to get the story out first." more»

Nominet Warns on Recent Jump in Whois Data Mining

Nominet has issued a warning about commercial companies that are swiping copyrighted information on domain name owners from its Whois database.

Several weeks ago, the UK internet registry owner noticed a sharp increase in the number of people accessing its Whois service, an online searchable database that provides ownership details for individual .uk internet addresses, including the name of the individual and sometimes their home address. more»

Spammers Operating Anonymously via Whois Privacy

The amount of message board spam has been escalating dramatically since mid-2005, according to experts and a search of Google shows a number of frequently recurring domains are appearing in bogus comments on message boards all over the internet.

Domains such as 888.typo7.com, e-casinoroom.com, HobbyWorkshop.com, onlinepokerment.com, TopSitesRanking.com and g4h5.com all appear in bogus postings which reference online gaming. Many of the actual sites link through to more than one established poker site. more»