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WHOIS Data and Accuracy

Domain name registrants play a key role in ensuring the accuracy of WHOIS. As a registrant, you are required to provide accurate WHOIS contact data, and maintain its accuracy throughout the term of your registration period.

When you register a domain name, you must give your registrar accurate and reliable contact details, and correct and update them promptly if there are any changes during the term of the registration period. This obligation is part of your registration agreement with the registrar.

If you give wrong information on purpose, or don't update your information promptly if there is a change, your domain name registration may be suspended or even cancelled. This could also happen if you don't respond to inquiries by your registrar if they contact you about the accuracy of your contact information.

On an annual basis, your registrar is required to send you an annual reminder of your obligation to maintain the accuracy of your WHOIS contact data. Please review the information provided by your registrar in this reminder carefully and make any necessary corrections. If you find that your WHOIS information is inaccurate, please refer to: About Correcting my WHOIS Data.

This web page aggregates existing content across the icann.org website on the topic of WHOIS. Additional information regarding WHOIS can also be viewed here. If you have suggestions or would like to submit an inquiry, please contact ICANN organization's Global Support Center's Global Support Center.

Contractual compliance complaints can be submitted here.

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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."