Finding Whois information

[UKSBD]

Now that Nominet no longer provide full whois information is there any other way of checking domain registrations and who they are registered to?

 

[nahosting]

Unless you have a legitimate reason, such as enforcement of legal rights or use of Nominet's Dispute Resolution Service then no - https://www.nominet.uk/whois/

 

[Novevan]

Google whois, then you can find lots of.

 

[MaureenP]

Now that Nominet no longer provide full whois information is there any other way of checking domain registrations and who they are registered to?

Here are the other tools through which you can check whois information (if that information is not private):

https://www.whois.com/whois/
http://whois.domaintools.com/

 

[NuBlue]

Thanks to GDPR, all personal details have been made private whether it was private pre-GDPR or not. Neither of the above tools, nor any other, should display the personal details behind the domain name.

 

[Ian J]

Thanks to GDPR, all personal details have been made private whether it was private pre-GDPR or not. Neither of the above tools, nor any other, should display the personal details behind the domain name.

Thanks to GDPR we now have a scammer's paradise. Unless it was a household name I always used to check with Nominet before parting with money on a website that I'd never heard of

 

[UKSBD]

Thanks to GDPR we now have a scammer's paradise. Unless it was a household name I always used to check with Nominet before parting with money on a website that I'd never heard of

Yep, the people creating all those fake sites must love it :-(

 

[fisicx]

It's still easy enough to do a bit of due diligence: look up the address on the website and check on Google maps. Compare with a data on Linkedin and other resources and ignore any business using a virtual address.

 

[astutiumRob]

is there any other way of checking domain registrations and who they are registered to?

Unless the domain registrant chooses to make their address and/or name "public" then no.

 

[NuBlue]

Unless the domain registrant chooses to make their address and/or name "public" then no.

By "public" that would have to be by publishing it on the site itself or somewhere else on t'internet. GDPR has put an end to any registrant details being published through whois services.

 

[UKSBD]

By "public" that would have to be by publishing it on the site itself or somewhere else on t'internet. GDPR has put an end to any registrant details being published through whois services.

Nominet gives you the option of making it public if you want the info displayed

 

[NuBlue]

So it does with the options ticked, one for name and another for address but by default, "contact information will not be publicly available in the public register and whois".

 

[Lee Oakley]

Granted it can aide scammers but there was a big argument for privacy (or change at least) given the sheer amount of WHOIS spam with bots scrapping the admin email and relentlessly spamming that day in day out.

For someone like myself who manages the hosting for my clients I welcome the reduction in spam but I agree that the downside in not being able to do WHOIS checks ourselves is unfortunate.

I have done them to validate people and companies myself so I guess the old companies house is still a good resource but perhaps Nominet can validate the buyer of a domain name instead for the name, address, and ID checks?

 

[ashbifs]

"Nominet gives you the option of making it public" These optoions are pre-GDPR. As has already been said ALL information about an owner is no longer displayed

 

[UKSBD]

"Nominet gives you the option of making it public" These optoions are pre-GDPR.

It isn't pre-GDPR, You still have the option to make the information public today if you want to.

 

[paulears]

I've not noticed this - my .co.uk and .com sites registered in Europe now have no useful info in them at all - how annoying!

 

[Ken Moorhouse]

One way of obtaining a limited amount of further information is to click on the info button to the left of HTTPS in a website's URL. Of course, you may not wish to visit a booby-trapped website, but if you are already there, and want to check bona fides, then try it.

In many cases you will see "no ownership information", but sometimes clicking the details button gives an inkling as to ownership. If you do this on, for example, the BBC website you will see the owner is British Broadcasting Corporation.

So, very hit and miss, but until ICANN get their finger out (or whoever it is that's supposed to give us this info - Companies House can do it for companies, so it's not impossible), this is arguably one way to check ownership of a domain.

For someone wishing to be proactive about identifying themselves and their business as genuine, this could be a good way for them to do so in the absence of WhoIs. Buy a certificate which enables ownership information to be embedded.

On the downside, there are a lot of dodgy certificate-issuers out there.