Service launched to help with who is lookups

Hello everyone,

We’ve been talking about Who Is lookups, the way that we as citizens can look up who owns a domain.

In a recent blog post documenting a recent email, I used such a tool.

I have two services that I had bookmarked. The first is Icann, the other is through Network Solutions.

But there are other services out there and I bet that Google might help if you ask who owns a domain.

As we talked about during the last security hour of Throwback, the domain in question is now on what they call “Client Hold.” This means that the registrar and the client (you) must settle something that has occurred and come to an agreement based on the situation. Who is services link to these codes so you can learn about what they mean.

In the Krebs Article, it links to this new service which by looking at it, looks like you need an account to use it. That makes sense, and i support it.

We’ll also be learning through reading this article tht thanks to the GDPR, registrars have redacted our information out of the public records to comply, even though I don’t necessarily live in the union where GDPR is enforced.

But in a way, it is good, as I was once harassed by someone thanks to the Who Is directory, although it was also a .us domain at that time like I recently have been by a company wanting me to pay for services I don’t need.

The service can’t be used for CCTLD lookups, says the article.

Brian writes:

The registrar community generally views public WHOIS data as a nuisance issue for their domain customers and an unwelcome cost-center. Privacy advocates maintain that cybercriminals don’t provide their real information in registration records anyway, and that requiring WHOIS data to be public simply causes domain registrants to be pestered by spammers, scammers and stalkers.

While there may be a reason to hide your registration or change its data to protect you for any reason, ICANN and the registrars do state that your info must be accurate for communication purposes.

Also, the .us registrar says that we must be open to prove that we are United States bound whether an entity or person. This opens the door to scammers and companies that don’t understand “No” when we tell them we don’t need their services.

blog post on phone scams

In that blog post, I do mention the company by name, but I know that they lied to me. Why would you tell me that you got my info from my registrar when I registered a .us domain you call about doing work for? This blog post talks about the company calling from a Los Angeles number. Really?

And, within the last 6 months, this company texts me from yet another area code trying to tout their services. Clearly, its scammy and spammy.

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If the registration services really cared about our privacy, all registrars, even CCTLD places will and should allow those who choose to hide their data can do so. The GDPR does not protect .us or any CCTLD from that. Only .com, .net, .org and .info to name 4 that we use here in the states.

Brian’s full article on the service is heavily linked. Here is the article for you. Its titled ICANN Launches Service to Help With WHOIS Lookups.

Maybe it can be of good use, and I hope it is not abused.