WHOIS Data Unreliable – 77 Percent False or Incomplete
By Anna Johnson on March 2nd, 2010A study on the accuracy of WHOIS information – information provided by domain name registrants – reveals that 23 percent of WHOIS records are fully accurate, 8 percent are patently false, and the remaining 69 percent are somewhere in between, containing some missing or inaccurate information.
Released by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). the findings are based on research conducted by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago, which examined the WHOIS records of registrants of the five top level domains (.com, .org, .net, .info and .biz) using an internationally representative sample of 1,419 records.
As noted in the report of the findings – available here – there are several barriers to increasing the accuracy of WHOIS records. These include privacy, confusion about the information required, lack of clarity over the standard of information required, no need for proof of identity or address, and differences in the approaches used by different registrars.
ICANN is inviting public comment on the report, which is due by April 15, 2010.
