ICANN advises Registrars on 2013 Whois requirements

Fadi Chehade, ICANN president/CEO

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has advised Registrars on the implementation of the 2013 Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA).

ICANN confirmed to DigitalSENSE Business News that the advice was intended to help registrars understand which Whois fields must be populated in pursuant of the 2013 Registrar Accreditation Agreement immediately upon their signing of the agreement, although these are not required until 1 January 2014.

DigitalSENSE Business News recalls that the 2013 Registrar Accreditation Agreement, like earlier forms of the registrar accreditation agreements, requires registrars to operate web-based and port 43 Whois services that provide public access to certain enumerated registration data fields.

Pointing out that Section3.3.1 of the RAA specifies required data fields, such as the name and address of the registered name holder, and name, address, email address, and phone number of the administration and technical contacts for each domain name among other required data elements.

ICANN emphasized that the 2013 RAA, unlike previous versions of the registrar accreditation agreement, also includes a Registration Data Directory Service (Whois) Specification, which among other things, describes a mandatory format registrars must use when publishing Whois data.

This format, ICANN stated includes a number of fields that were not required by earlier versions of the RAA, citing an instance that the Registration Data Directory Service for Whois’ specification requires registrars to include in their Whois output the email address and telephone number of the registrar's abuse point of contact as well as the identities (IDs) or handles used by the registry to identify the domain name and its contacts.

“Because the 2013 RAA includes a number of new operational responsibilities for registrars that could reasonably take weeks or months to implement, the agreement also incorporates a Transition Addendum,” official said, elucidating that the Transition Addendum describes a number of obligations for which ICANN will not require registrar compliance until 1 January 2014. By way of example, registrars are not required to fully implement an abuse point-of-contact and advised them to see Section 3.18 of the RAA; until 1 January 2014.

DigitalSENSE Business News investigations revealed that some registrars have asked ICANN to clarify whether they must immediately begin populating Whois data with fields, such as the abuse point-of-contact email address and telephone number, even though they are not yet required to comply with the underlying obligation.

Remmy Nweke
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