Reglikedomain industry desk

“Whois Publicity” for domain names — Tucows offers

“Whois Publicity” for domain names — Tucows offers

Clients can now publish their information in Whois.

Graphic with the acronym GDPR for General Data Protection Regulation

Tucows (NASDAQ: TCX) has started allowing clients on its Enom and OpenSRS platforms to display their information publicly in Whois—as long as their reseller enables it.

Called “Whois Publicity“, the fresh option allows registrants to include their registrant information in Whois. Whois will still not show Admin, Tech and Billing contacts even with the Whois Publicity option turned on.

The firm masked Whois information for all “thin Whois” domains on its platform following the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation went into effect last year.

ICANN requires all registrars to allow clients to show their information in Whois, but few have enabled this option so far. That’s since ICANN added a loophole to this requirement:

7.2.1. As soon as commercially reasonable, Registrar MUST provide the opportunity for the Registered Name Holder to provide its Consent to publish the additional contact information outlined in Section 2.3 of Appendix A for the Registered Name Holder.

“Commercially reasonable” could mean one year, two, or more. Many registrars are probably waiting for the temporary specification in which this requirement exists to be made permanent.

(Hat tip: George Kirikos)

Also on the wire

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