As per ICANN requirements, accredited registrars must have both web-based whois AND working whois server on port 43. OK, web-based whois @ godaddy works fine (with captcha).
What is happening with regular port 43 whois is more interesting. After 3-4 requests in a raw from the same IP, this ip becomes banned forever (only partial whois record is returned).
How can this be in compliance with ICANN rules? It is definitely not. IPs are commonly shared in current isp environments, most notably with 3g/4g connections. Accordingly, current GD policy may prevent somebody from checking one and only whois record just once, simply because another customer of the same isp checked godaddy whois 4 times in a raw a year ago. I bet ICANN did not have such a possibility in mind when they developed official whois policies.
Well, indeed there is tons of whois harvesters, spammers and data miners. It is likely that
@Joe Styler or
@Paul Nicks (should they come to this thread) will explain that GoDaddy is doing their best to protect us the customers from those bad guys (and that GD also elected to become incompliant with ICANN regulations for such a good purpose).
There are a few side effects though - it should now become more hard to transfer-away from godaddy (especially to smaller registrars that may not have their IPs whitelisted by GD for the purposes of retreiving full whois), and also it may become more hard to purchase SSL certificate from another supplier for GoDaddy-registered domain, as whois check is one of commonly used methods to verify domain control for SSL certificate sellers.
Accordingly, it appears that current GoDaddy policy is undoubtfully a win-win situation for both godaddy enduser customers (who are now well protected from data harvesters) and for GoDaddy itself (who will now have more sales of GoDaddy SSL certificates and less domains transferred away).
I am speaking seriously, it is now more practical for any enduser to handreg their domain with GoDaddy as they should see less Indian spam arriving with design/hosting/logo offers as the result of domain registration. Simply because whois is not working
How beneficial is this policy for domainers? ZERO benefits imho. I have domains for sale regged with GoDaddy, and I WANT to receive requests from potential buyers also via whois channel. I do NOT want whois records of my domains to be restricted in any aspect.
Cc:
@Joe Styler /
@Paul Nicks - can you comment please????