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5 Things Every Domain Name Registrant Should Know About the ICANN WHOIS Data Reminder Policy (WDRP)

  1. The WDRP requires your registrar to send you an annual reminder of your obligation to update your WHOIS information, which includes your contact information, if there are any changes. It's important that when you receive this reminder, you review the information provided by your registrar carefully and make any necessary corrections as invalid or out of date information can result in suspension of the domain name or difficulties in renewing or otherwise transferring the domain to another registrar or registrant.
  2. In the WDRP notice, your registrar must present you with the WHOIS information, which includes your contact information, associated with your domain name registration that they currently have on record. The WDRP notice also reminds you that providing false WHOIS information, which includes your contact information, can be grounds for cancellation of your domain name registration.
  3. While ICANN is responsible for making sure that registrars verify and validate the WHOIS information, which includes your contact information, you provide them, ICANN itself does not (and cannot) verify or update WHOIS information. You must contact your registrar to do so. See How do I correct my WHOIS information for more details.
  4. WDRP notices are sent by registrars in order to comply with the WDRP. Although some registrars or resellers might send out messages from an "icann@" email account, these messages do not come from ICANN.
  5. When entering and updating your WHOIS information, which includes your contact information, be sure to use email addresses that are active and checked frequently to be sure you receive WDRP and other important notices from your registrar. This is particularly important for those who might be using a privacy or proxy service. Remember to also use strong passwords. It is also a good practice to use different passwords for your email and your account with your registrar. You might also consider putting your own name in the WHOIS contact data even if you are using a privacy or proxy service as this can help prevent any disputes that might arise as to whom the underlying domain name registrant actually is.

Have more questions? See FAQs on Registrant Contact Information and the WDRP

Domain Name System
Internationalized Domain Name ,IDN,"IDNs are domain names that include characters used in the local representation of languages that are not written with the twenty-six letters of the basic Latin alphabet ""a-z"". An IDN can contain Latin letters with diacritical marks, as required by many European languages, or may consist of characters from non-Latin scripts such as Arabic or Chinese. Many languages also use other types of digits than the European ""0-9"". The basic Latin alphabet together with the European-Arabic digits are, for the purpose of domain names, termed ""ASCII characters"" (ASCII = American Standard Code for Information Interchange). These are also included in the broader range of ""Unicode characters"" that provides the basis for IDNs. The ""hostname rule"" requires that all domain names of the type under consideration here are stored in the DNS using only the ASCII characters listed above, with the one further addition of the hyphen ""-"". The Unicode form of an IDN therefore requires special encoding before it is entered into the DNS. The following terminology is used when distinguishing between these forms: A domain name consists of a series of ""labels"" (separated by ""dots""). The ASCII form of an IDN label is termed an ""A-label"". All operations defined in the DNS protocol use A-labels exclusively. The Unicode form, which a user expects to be displayed, is termed a ""U-label"". The difference may be illustrated with the Hindi word for ""test"" — परीका — appearing here as a U-label would (in the Devanagari script). A special form of ""ASCII compatible encoding"" (abbreviated ACE) is applied to this to produce the corresponding A-label: xn--11b5bs1di. A domain name that only includes ASCII letters, digits, and hyphens is termed an ""LDH label"". Although the definitions of A-labels and LDH-labels overlap, a name consisting exclusively of LDH labels, such as""icann.org"" is not an IDN."