Whois invalid. Now what?

[matt_bodis]

Okay,

So I need a very important domain for a company that one of my relatives works for. I have no way to contact the domain owner.

First off, he lives in Germany. I call the administrative contact in Germany and a woman picks up. I keep asking her for the person on the WHOIS, and she says something in German that sounds like "No" or "Does not live here anymore". I contact the email address in the WHOIS information and it bounces within a few seconds.

Now the only option I had left was to contact their registrar, which is evanzo.net, a German-based registrar. I call them and ask for English, the person told me that they have the same phone number and email on file for the client and that there is no way they can contact him for me.

Now what can I possibly do? I reported invalid WHOIS via GoDaddy.com and told them it was urgent, explaining the entire situation to them. But will that do anything? Will they take action even though the domain isn't with GoDaddy?


What are my options?

 

[B33R]

http://wdprs.internic.net/ sends the report to the domain registar. X days to update the details or the domain gets dropped.

That doesn't sound like what you want to happen, but that's the only way I can think of.
The domain may get held by the registrar or grabbed by someone else though.

 

[matt_bodis]

Okay, I did it, thanks.

Question, how long do they now have for correcting the WHOIS? If nothing gets done, how many days will it take for the domain to drop? Will I be notified before the drop?

 

[B33R]

This is what my email says:

A copy of your report will be forwarded directly to the sponsoring
registrar for investigation. The sponsoring registrar is responsible
for investigating and correcting the data in response to your report as
described in ICANN's "Registrar Advisory Concerning Whois Data Accuracy"

<http://www.icann.org/announcements/advisory-10may02.htm>.

For additional background information regarding registrars' Whois data
accuracy obligations, see also the Registrar Advisory Concerning the
'15-day Period' in Whois Accuracy Requirements

<http://www.icann.org/announcements/advisory-03apr03.htm>.

As discussed in detail in these advisories, it might legitimately take
up to several weeks for the registrar to take action in response to your
report.

Please save this email as a record of your report. If you have reason
to believe that the sponsoring registrar may not be fulfilling its
obligations, please forward your copy of this e-mail, along with any
other relevant information, to ICANN's Registrar Liaison department at
<[email protected]>. ICANN will review your submission and work
with the registrar to ensure compliance. Also, in order to assist our
efforts to improve Whois data accuracy, we may contact you later via
e-mail to follow-up concerning the registrar's handling of your report.

The one I reported took 5 days for someone to update the details.
I'm not sure if they notify you before the drop/delete as I never got that far. Maybe someone else can tell you.

 

[Dave_Z]

There's no specific time frame.

Once the registrar gets the invalid WHOIS report from ICANN, it's up to them
how they'll treat it. And they're not going to tell 3rd parties what happens.

This I do know: they'll give the registrant and contacts time to reply, within a
week or 2 maybe. If no response, they'll "suspend" the domain name at the
very least.

If yet no reponse after another week or 2, that's when they'll do as they see
fit. But again, there's no telling what they'll do.

 

[SpareDomains]

why not contact sedo as they are fluent in german and maybe one of their brokers can make contact for you, seems a little strong to report the whois invalid unless you are 100% sure what the lady on the phone said.

 

[matt_bodis]

Well today is basically 7 days from my complaint to ICANN.

I visit the domain and now the registrar put up a "Service suspended for this domain." page. Seems as if the registrar has took action, received no response from buyer, and suspended the domain.

But now what? Will they let the domain drop? How long will it take from this point? And what do I do if they don't drop the domain within 2 weeks?

 

[Dave_Z]

But now what? Will they let the domain drop? How long will it take from this point? And what do I do if they don't drop the domain within 2 weeks?

Ideally they'll delete the domain name. In reality they're free to do with it as
they please.

Like I said, they won't tell 3rd parties. But one possible way to find out is to
look through their legal fine prints for even a hint.

If they do delete the domain name after some time, it follows the redemption
period thingie.

On the side, I wrote of such an extreme case in my blog somewhere. What
made it extreme is the registrar seems to refuse to redeem it for its customer
because it was reported for such more than once in a given year.

 

[matt_bodis]

Thanks for the insight Dave.

How much longer do you think it may take the registrar to put the domain into redemption period? And what/where is the legal fine print?

 

[matt_bodis]

It has been nearly 6 months since the complaint I have sent to ICANN. The domain still has the page "Domain Service Terminated" written in German. The owner has dissappeared but the registrar is not deleting it or doing anything to the domain.

Today I check whois and the Registrar Status changed from Registrar-Lock to clientDeleteProhibited. The expiration date is April 2007. Am I forced to wait until this date? I've already waited 6 months, I can probably end up dealing with another 6.

 

[Dave_Z]

That means the domain name's suspended at the very least. Only the provider
in question can say what's its status (which again they don't have to tell 3rd
parties).

The provider's legal fine prints (e.g. service agreement, terms of service, etc.)
can possibly give you hints. Otherwise, you'll have to keep checking and lying
in wait.