ICANN touts WHOIS compliance rules, but not for registrars

04.11.2008
Last Friday, being taken to ensure that the provisions of the RAA with regard to WHOIS information are followed correctly. And in nearly every article we have published here at The Industry Standard about ICANN policy, we are reminded that the public can recommend changes to the RAA, which is currently undergoing revision.

What is most interesting about the ICANN WHOIS focus, is that the registrars themselves are not subject to the same strict information regulation. One of the easiest ways to spot spammers, malware distributors, or other illegal activity associated with domains online has been the ability to check a registrant's WHOIS information. Falsified or missing information is often an indicator of a fly-by-night registrant, or one unwilling to provide real information due to their unscrupulous activities. As a result, false information is one of the biggest complaints concerning ICANN's registrar enforcement; the Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA) requires that registrars get complete and verifiable information from the customers they register.

, registrars often use locations that have no relation to their actual physical addresses, many use mail-drop addresses, and over 70 registrars have no disclosed location at all. If ICANN isn't willing to require the same information from the registrars that the registrars are expected to obtain from their clients, it makes sense that domain registrants are allowed such free reign from known offender registrars.

KnujOn's current campaign suggests that the public support its recommendations to ICANN to require that same information from its registrars as domain registrants are required to provide, as well as require registrars to publicly display the name of the CEO or President of a registrar, and notify the agency of changes to that office.