TLDs That Don't Respond to WHOIS Queries Correctly
Note: this is not an exhaustive list, and it will be updated as I find more TLDs that act in this way.
I admit I haven’t read through all of the RFCs for the WHOIS system (yet) and I’m not familiar with all the ins and outs of what ICANN expects from registries, so my use of ‘correct’ in the title is just based on my experience with the most common TLDs so far and the original goal for the WHOIS system. If I have missed something, or used wrong terminology somewhere, be sure to let me know in the comments!
For those unfamiliar with how WHOIS works for domain names, WHOIS servers respond to lookups with information about the owner and maintainer of the domain name. The normal response to a lookup might look like this:
$ whois google.com
% IANA WHOIS server
% for more information on IANA, visit http://www.iana.org
% This query returned 1 object
refer: whois.verisign-grs.com
domain: COM
organisation: VeriSign Global Registry Services
address: 12061 Bluemont Way
address: Reston Virginia 20190
address: United States
contact: administrative
name: Registry Customer Service
organisation: VeriSign Global Registry Services
address: 12061 Bluemont Way
address: Reston Virginia 20190
address: United States
phone: +1 703 925-6999
fax-no: +1 703 948 3978
e-mail: [email protected]
contact: technical
name: Registry Customer Service
organisation: VeriSign Global Registry Services
address: 12061 Bluemont Way
address: Reston Virginia 20190
address: United States
phone: +1 703 925-6999
fax-no: +1 703 948 3978
e-mail: [email protected]
nserver: A.GTLD-SERVERS.NET 192.5.6.30 2001:503:a83e:0:0:0:2:30
nserver: B.GTLD-SERVERS.NET 192.33.14.30 2001:503:231d:0:0:0:2:30
nserver: C.GTLD-SERVERS.NET 192.26.92.30 2001:503:83eb:0:0:0:0:30
nserver: D.GTLD-SERVERS.NET 192.31.80.30 2001:500:856e:0:0:0:0:30
nserver: E.GTLD-SERVERS.NET 192.12.94.30 2001:502:1ca1:0:0:0:0:30
nserver: F.GTLD-SERVERS.NET 192.35.51.30 2001:503:d414:0:0:0:0:30
nserver: G.GTLD-SERVERS.NET 192.42.93.30 2001:503:eea3:0:0:0:0:30
nserver: H.GTLD-SERVERS.NET 192.54.112.30 2001:502:8cc:0:0:0:0:30
nserver: I.GTLD-SERVERS.NET 192.43.172.30 2001:503:39c1:0:0:0:0:30
nserver: J.GTLD-SERVERS.NET 192.48.79.30 2001:502:7094:0:0:0:0:30
nserver: K.GTLD-SERVERS.NET 192.52.178.30 2001:503:d2d:0:0:0:0:30
nserver: L.GTLD-SERVERS.NET 192.41.162.30 2001:500:d937:0:0:0:0:30
nserver: M.GTLD-SERVERS.NET 192.55.83.30 2001:501:b1f9:0:0:0:0:30
ds-rdata: 30909 8 2 E2D3C916F6DEEAC73294E8268FB5885044A833FC5459588F4A9184CFC41A5766
whois: whois.verisign-grs.com
status: ACTIVE
remarks: Registration information: http://www.verisigninc.com
created: 1985-01-01
changed: 2017-10-05
source: IANA
Domain Name: GOOGLE.COM
Registry Domain ID: 2138514_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.markmonitor.com
Registrar URL: http://www.markmonitor.com
Updated Date: 2019-09-09T15:39:04Z
Creation Date: 1997-09-15T04:00:00Z
Registry Expiry Date: 2028-09-14T04:00:00Z
Registrar: MarkMonitor Inc.
Registrar IANA ID: 292
Registrar Abuse Contact Email: [email protected]
Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: +1.2083895740
Domain Status: clientDeleteProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientDeleteProhibited
Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientTransferProhibited
Domain Status: clientUpdateProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientUpdateProhibited
Domain Status: serverDeleteProhibited https://icann.org/epp#serverDeleteProhibited
Domain Status: serverTransferProhibited https://icann.org/epp#serverTransferProhibited
Domain Status: serverUpdateProhibited https://icann.org/epp#serverUpdateProhibited
Name Server: NS1.GOOGLE.COM
Name Server: NS2.GOOGLE.COM
Name Server: NS3.GOOGLE.COM
Name Server: NS4.GOOGLE.COM
DNSSEC: unsigned
URL of the ICANN Whois Inaccuracy Complaint Form: https://www.icann.org/wicf/
>>> Last update of whois database: 2020-05-14T17:31:44Z <<<
As you can see, this includes all the information relevant to the domain.
Now we come to the reason why I’m writing this - some TLDs do not respond in this way. Sometimes this is because a typical response like above contains personal information, and this conflicts with GDPR or privacy in general.
One of the TLDs that acts this way is .tt, the country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Trinidad and Tobago. If we do another WHOIS lookup for possibly the most well-known .tt domain, ma.tt, we see the following:
$ whois ma.tt
% IANA WHOIS server
% for more information on IANA, visit http://www.iana.org
% This query returned 1 object
domain: TT
organisation: University of the West Indies
organisation: Faculty of Engineering
address: St. Augustine
address: Trinidad And Tobago
contact: administrative
name: Dr. Patrick Hosein
organisation: TTNIC
address: 84 Abercromby St.
address: Port of Spain
address: Trinidad And Tobago
phone: +1 868 483 4454
e-mail: [email protected]
contact: technical
name: Dr. Patrick Hosein
organisation: TTNIC
address: 84 Abercromby St.
address: Port of Spain
address: Trinidad And Tobago
phone: +1868 483 4454
e-mail: [email protected]
nserver: A.LACTLD.ORG 200.0.68.10 2801:14:a000:0:0:0:0:10
nserver: NS3.NIC.MX 200.33.111.1
nserver: PCH.NIC.TT 2001:500:14:6063:ad:0:0:1 204.61.216.63
nserver: RIPE.NIC.TT 193.0.9.50 2001:67c:e0:0:0:0:0:50
ds-rdata: 2539 8 2 b06dfa79674df3ea8190e7616164414b01e9199b7c94ec1540378a395daa401f
status: ACTIVE
remarks: Registration information: http://www.nic.tt
created: 1991-09-03
changed: 2020-01-14
source: IANA
As you can see, the WHOIS lookup only returns the information for the .tt domain.
Does this mean we can’t find any information about these domains? No, if we go to the NIC’s website, we can perform a lookup on the following web page: https://www.nic.tt/cgi-bin/search.pl. Unforturnately, this information is not available via the normal WHOIS system (TCP/43).
List of TLDs and where to find WHOIS information
.be- dnsbelgium.be (online search form and WHOIS service, does not return any registrant information)..tt- nic.tt (online search form only, returns registrant name but redacts contact information)..to- tonic.to (online search form and WHOIS service, does not return any registrant information).