ICANN published the WHOIS Accuracy Reporting System December 2016 report. This latest report of the WHOIS Accuracy Reporting System (ARS) acts as a follow-on to the reports published in June 2016 and December 2015.
ICANN developed accuracy tests to answer questions about the syntax (format and content) and operability (e.g., does an email sent to the email address provided in the WHOIS record go through?) of a sample of WHOIS records. Then, using statistical methods, syntax and operability accuracy estimates with a 95 percent confidence interval were provided for the population of domains in gTLDs as a whole, as well as for several subgroups of interest.
Key Findings
The analysis found that:
- Nearly all WHOIS records contain information that can be used to establish immediate contact: In 97 percent of records, at least one email or phone number meets all operability requirements of the 2009 RAA.
- Approximately 90 percent of email addresses, 72 percent of telephone numbers and 97 percent of postal addresses were operable (see Table 1 below for more information).Table 1: Overall gTLD Operability Accuracy by Contact Mode (95 percent confidence interval)
Read MoreResults included in the report have been provided to ICANN’s Contractual Compliance team, which will assess the types of errors found and follow up with registrars on potentially inaccurate records. If WHOIS inaccuracy and/or format complaints are created from the WHOIS ARS data, ICANN Contractual Compliance will issue tickets in accordance with the Contractual Compliance Approach and Process [PDF, 292 KB]. Compliance provides updates on a quarterly basis, which include updates on WHOIS ARS tickets and can be found here...
