A few domain name registrars that are already masking or blocking whois

We are less than 2 months away from the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and it seems that a few domain name registrars are already masking or blocking whois details.

Blocking has been going on for years especially from GoDaddy but masking whois details is something fairly new.

GDPR is a regulation in EU law on data protection and privacy for all individuals within the European Union. It addresses the export of personal data outside the EU.

The problem here is that these few registrars are acting on their own and against ICANN rules. At least the rules we have today and not in 2 months or next year.

I have explained previously explained how GoDaddy is violating ICANN rules after GoDaddy formally announced that it started masking whois. GoDaddy did not even mention GDPR but claimed that it did that to protect its clients from spam. Instead GoDaddy is probably using this to throttle transfers out.

All this while ICANN is still away from a decision while not even an interim solution is in sight.

So I did some research and found a few registrars that are already doing whois masking.

GoDaddy.com

(including wildwestdomains.com, bluerazor.com and a few other GoDaddy registrars)

Here is what GoDaddy is masking on each domain name record and how:

Registrant Name: ******** ********
Registrant Phone: **********
Registrant Email: ********@*****.***

or when an IP is banned:

Registrant Name: ******** ******** (see Notes section below on how to view unmasked data)
For complete domain details go to:
http://who.godaddy.com/whoischeck.aspx?domain=******.COM

007names.com

Here is what 007names is masking on each domain name record and how:

Registrant Name: ***** *******
Registrant Phone: +*.**********
Registrant Email: *****@******************.***

 

Blocking whois access in wport 43

I was blocked by many registrars during this research. Blocking means that after 5 or 10 whois inquiries to a registrar on port 43, I stop receiving any whois details. NONE of the registrars state their rules on how many connections I can do on port 43 and how frequent these connections can be so I don’t get banned.

I was banned/blocked by:

godaddy.com
wildwestdomains.com
bluerazor.com
uniregistrar.com
tucowsdomains.com
networksolutions.com
fiducia.lv
easydns.com
dynadot.com

Final words:

All registrars above don’t mask the registrant organization except when my IP was banned at GoDaddy.

Also the street address is shown at all registrars. At least you can send snail mail or courier to the domain name owners in case you need to contact them.

At first I thought that Namesilo was also doing some whois masking but it was really just one of its clients that is putting Registrant Name as “********* **********”.

The complete whois details are available when you visit each of the registar’s websites.