On May 25th, 2018, the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) went into effect, aiming to give control to consumers over their personal data. The regulation is being enforced across the European Union and European Economic Area but also affects the exportation of personal data outside the region.
As with many organizations, ICANN is required to comply with the GDPR. This means there have been some changes to the amount of data publicly available via WHOIS. Some registrars such as Google have limited the amount of data available, whilst Name.com are providing a contact form to message domain owners.
With this limited amount of data, it may be a little more difficult in future to get in contact with the owner of a domain you're looking to buy. Here are five methods to help you track down the owner of a domain name.
DomainIQ
The first port of call is to use the WHOIS history tool available at DomainIQ. For the majority of names, DomainIQ has a cache of historical WHOIS records. If a domain has been in the possession of the same person for a number of years, an email to the last WHOIS listing with an email address may work, or at least help you to get hold of the current owner.
If the domain was listed under privacy protection, the last known email address may not be valid. Many privacy services periodically change email addresses. Network Solutions, for example, changes client privacy email addresses every ten days.
LinkedIn
Registrars such as Google are currently displaying the registrant's organization name, their state, and their country in WHOIS. Using this data, you may be able to visit LinkedIn and search for the organization name. If a matching company name exists on LinkedIn, you can view said company's employees very easily.
Every company page on LinkedIn has a link to view all employees of that company. Using that page, you'll be able to find the appropriate decision maker.
Email Testing
If the domain has an active website, an email address for the company may be listed on the site. By using LinkedIn to find the right person to contact, you should be able to work out the email format used by the company.
Services such as Hunter may list the domain's email format in its database. Otherwise, services such as MailTester will usually be able to indicate whether a certain email address works.
Sometimes, a domain may have an email box connected to it without having a website displayed. To check this, you can use a service such as MX Toolbox to find out whether any MX records are listed for the domain.
Check the Archives
Has the domain hosted a website in the past but doesn't now? You can check Archive.org's WayBack Machine for archival copies of any site that has been hosted on the name in the past. Checking archival copies can sometimes bring up new data that may help you to contact the current owner.
Use a Broker
If your own attempts fail, you can always call on a broker to pursue the name on your behalf. If your budget is large enough, a buyer broker may be able to make a deal possible when it wasn't before. Those industry professionals that spend every day tracking down domain owners will have their own set of techniques that may not be affected by the GDPR. They also may have contacts with people or companies that can help them find the domain's current owner. Sometimes, they even have the contact details for certain domain owners that they have compiled over the years, such as when they have spoken to the owner of a particular domain for a previous client before the GDPR went into effect.
As with many organizations, ICANN is required to comply with the GDPR. This means there have been some changes to the amount of data publicly available via WHOIS. Some registrars such as Google have limited the amount of data available, whilst Name.com are providing a contact form to message domain owners.
With this limited amount of data, it may be a little more difficult in future to get in contact with the owner of a domain you're looking to buy. Here are five methods to help you track down the owner of a domain name.
DomainIQ
The first port of call is to use the WHOIS history tool available at DomainIQ. For the majority of names, DomainIQ has a cache of historical WHOIS records. If a domain has been in the possession of the same person for a number of years, an email to the last WHOIS listing with an email address may work, or at least help you to get hold of the current owner.
If the domain was listed under privacy protection, the last known email address may not be valid. Many privacy services periodically change email addresses. Network Solutions, for example, changes client privacy email addresses every ten days.
Registrars such as Google are currently displaying the registrant's organization name, their state, and their country in WHOIS. Using this data, you may be able to visit LinkedIn and search for the organization name. If a matching company name exists on LinkedIn, you can view said company's employees very easily.
Every company page on LinkedIn has a link to view all employees of that company. Using that page, you'll be able to find the appropriate decision maker.
Email Testing
If the domain has an active website, an email address for the company may be listed on the site. By using LinkedIn to find the right person to contact, you should be able to work out the email format used by the company.
Services such as Hunter may list the domain's email format in its database. Otherwise, services such as MailTester will usually be able to indicate whether a certain email address works.
Sometimes, a domain may have an email box connected to it without having a website displayed. To check this, you can use a service such as MX Toolbox to find out whether any MX records are listed for the domain.
Check the Archives
Has the domain hosted a website in the past but doesn't now? You can check Archive.org's WayBack Machine for archival copies of any site that has been hosted on the name in the past. Checking archival copies can sometimes bring up new data that may help you to contact the current owner.
Use a Broker
If your own attempts fail, you can always call on a broker to pursue the name on your behalf. If your budget is large enough, a buyer broker may be able to make a deal possible when it wasn't before. Those industry professionals that spend every day tracking down domain owners will have their own set of techniques that may not be affected by the GDPR. They also may have contacts with people or companies that can help them find the domain's current owner. Sometimes, they even have the contact details for certain domain owners that they have compiled over the years, such as when they have spoken to the owner of a particular domain for a previous client before the GDPR went into effect.
