Whois

WHOIS has been a complex issue within ICANN, and continues to receive attention at the policy level. While this important policy work goes on, ICANN still has the clear responsibility to enforce existing WHOIS provisions with contracted parties in order to fulfill the requirements set forth in their agreements with ICANN. The following links provide mechanisms for users to file complaints with ICANN's Compliance department on WHOIS related violations: Whois data is a collection of data about the registered domain name, its name servers and registrar, the domain name creation date, the domain name expiration date, the contact information for the registered name holder, the technical contact, and the administrative contact – to list a few.
If you have an inquiry or a complaint regarding incorrect Whois data, please submit a Whois inaccuracy complaint using the form at Whois Inaccuracy Complaint Form. This form allows for the submission of single complaints, as well as multiple complaints ICANN also provides a mechanism for bulk Whois inaccuracy complaint submission, which allows a user to submit a number of complaints through a single file upload. The complaints are processed in the same method and queue as single and multiple submission Whois inaccuracy complaints. Users of the bulk system must agree to a mandatory terms of use, and their complaint quality is monitored by ICANN.
All valid Whois inaccuracy complaints will be forwarded to the sponsoring registrar, which must take reasonable steps to investigate and correct inaccurate data.
The 2024 Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA) requires ICANN-accredited registrars to comply with the Whois Accuracy Program Specification.
This specification requires a registrar to take action when a registrant does not respond for over 15 calendar days to a registrar's inquiries regarding the accuracy of contact details or Whois data associated with the registration. The action can be to terminate or suspend the non-responsive registrant's domain name, or to place a lock on the domain name registration until the registrar is able to validate information provided by the registrant.
To determine which RAA version applies to a registrar, visit the ICANN-Accredited Registrars page, which lists the RAA version for every registrar.
To find out why you might have lost the ability to manage your domain name, please read the information here https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/lost-domain-names before submitting a complaint.
On 17 May 2018 the ICANN Board adopted a Temporary Specification for gTLD Registration Data. On 20 May 2019, the ICANN Board adopted an Interim Registration Data Policy for gTLDs, requiring contracted parties to continue to implement measures consistent with the Temporary Specification during Stage 1, pending implementation of the Board-approved recommendations of the Expedited Policy Development Process (EPDP) on gTLD Registration Data (phase 1). As a result, ICANN contracted parties have, in some circumstances, changed how Registration Data is publicly displayed and processed. Accordingly, some Personal Data in Registration Data may be redacted in the public RDDS. Further, the email fields for certain RDDS contacts may display a webform or an email address that does not identify the contact, but still provides the functionality to forward email communications to the email address of the relevant contact.

*Note: Where Registration Data is redacted pursuant to the above, contracted parties must provide reasonable access to Personal Data in Registration Data to third parties on the basis of a legitimate interests pursued by the third party, except where such interests are overridden by the interests or fundamental rights and freedoms of the Registered Name Holder or data subject pursuant to Article 6(1)(f) GDPR. (Temporary Specification, Appendix A, Section 4).