WHO.IS service is used to determine the owners of domain names registered in the web and contains information about the company or the people under whose name these domains are registered, and sometimes on the system administrators who are responsible for the system. In addition, WHO.IS contains information about the owners of ranges of network addresses.

This service is free, but users are immediately warned about the rules of order of information received. In practice, this means that the service user agrees to the terms in a list which includes the requirement to use the information only for lawful purposes and a ban on its use for the organization of spam. A service, in turn, keeps track of requests sent, and in certain situations, it may stop issuing information and to apply to the users actions.

Access to the WHO.IS service is provided by many dedicated hosting providers, ISPs and simple site. But it is better to use to access it via the official focal areas in which there are verifiable domain names. Through WHO.IS service you can search for domains of the first and second levels in the .Com, .Net, .Biz, .Edu, .Info, .Org zones, and etc..

For more information about domain, you only need to enter the address (eg, yoursite.in) in the box, or enter only the name and note the necessary areas for inspection, wait a few seconds and get the requested information. The number and content of information received about the owner of the domain name may be different from request to request – it depends on where and by whom the domain was registered you are interested. But the overall structure of a unified response and is defined in RFC 1834, which describes all possible fields. For information about individual objects (technical support, organization, person) must enter their unique identifiers (nic-handle), like so:

• TEST-MNT-RIPN (information on technical support);
• TEST-ORG-RIPN (data about the organization);
• TEST-RIPN (data about the person).

Here is a list of fields and their values that may be present in the received information about the domain:

address: contact details of an individual.
admin-c: identifier representative of the organization of the administrative contact.
admin-o: ID Domain Administrator
bill-c: identifier representative of an organization or individual responsible for the payment of the maintenance of domain.
changed: the last modified date customer information to the domain (leading to the launch of the testing process zone). For third-level domains can specify a date when to start the annual automatic testing zone, if not will be sent a request to update the zone.
created: the date of registration of the domain, does not change upon renewal of registration, change the administrator or registrar.
descr: short description of the object in any written form (field optional)
domain: the domain name.
e-mail: e-mail address.
fax-no: Fax number (with international code and area code).
free-date: the date of release of the domain (as specified for the domain with the imminent cancellation of registration).
mnt-adm: an organization or individual that owns the service and technical support.
nic-hdl: object identifier of the database.
nserver: a list of DNS-servers that support the domain (if the server name contains the domain name is specified as its IP-address).
org: organization name.
paid-till: the date on which paid for the domain registration.
person: full name of the individual (in English. Language), a domain administrator
phone: phone (s) with the Intl. code and area code.
reg-ch: id registrar to whom the domain (if you must change the registrar).
registrar: Registrar ID.
remark: arbitrary text comments.
source: a source of information.
state: state of the object.
tech-c: ID of the contact person for technical matters.
type: the type of domain.
whois: Whois-service registrar.
www: URL-address of the site registrar.
x-freeing: domain name be deleted from the registry within one hour.

Let’s make a request for information and sort out the data. For example, to perform a query about the site – www.esds.co.in
That is what is found in the database in our search:

Domain Name:ESDS.CO.IN
Created On:01-Sep-2007 11:16:20 UTC
Last Updated On:29-Jun-2010 15:24:08 UTC
Expiration Date:01-Sep-2019 11:16:20 UTC
Sponsoring Registrar:Directi Internet Solutions Pvt. Ltd. dba PublicDomainRegistry.com (R5-AFIN)
Status:CLIENT TRANSFER PROHIBITED
Registrant ID:DI_6952992
Registrant Name:Pooja Somani
Registrant Organization:ESDS Software Solution Pvt Ltd
Registrant Street1:B-24 / B-25, NICE Industrial Area, Satpur MIDC
Registrant Street2:
Registrant Street3:
Registrant City:Nashik
Registrant State/Province:Maharashtra
Registrant Postal Code:422007
Registrant Country:IN
Registrant Phone:+91.2536615654
Registrant Phone Ext.:
Registrant FAX:+91.2266459726
Registrant FAX Ext.:
Registrant Email:[email protected]
Admin ID:DI_6952992
Admin Name:Pooja Somani
Admin Organization:ESDS Software Solution Pvt Ltd
Admin Street1:B-24 / B-25, NICE Industrial Area, Satpur MIDC
Admin Street2:
Admin Street3:
Admin City:Nashik
Admin State/Province:Maharashtra
Admin Postal Code:422007
Admin Country:IN
Admin Phone:+91.2536615654
Admin Phone Ext.:
Admin FAX:+91.2266459726
Admin FAX Ext.:
Admin Email:[email protected]
Tech ID:DI_6952992
Tech Name:Pooja Somani
Tech Organization:ESDS Software Solution Pvt Ltd
Tech Street1:B-24 / B-25, NICE Industrial Area, Satpur MIDC
Tech Street2:
Tech Street3:
Tech City:Nashik
Tech State/Province:Maharashtra
Tech Postal Code:422007
Tech Country:IN
Tech Phone:+91.2536615654
Tech Phone Ext.:
Tech FAX:+91.2266459726
Tech FAX Ext.:
Tech Email:Email Masking [email protected]
Name Server:NS1.ESDS.CO.IN
Name Server:NS2.ESDS.CO.IN

Information Updated: Mon, 17 Jan 2011 07:53:06 UTC

Each field starts with its name, and after the colon should be corresponding to the field information. There are mandatory and as well as optional fields that are present in any response. There are fields that can be repeated, “multipliers”, and there are – non-recurring, “singles”. Number of fields in the answer may be different.

It often happens that the information is displayed in separate blocks, each of which contains data on one aspect of the domain. These blocks are separated by the field (source), which indicates the database ID.

In the areas .com and .net ownership information is contained only in the databases of registrars. Instead, the field (Referral URL) is a reference to the registrar’s website. This difference is explained by the fact that each registrar has its own database of domain owners, and to obtain information about the owner can only have a specific registrar. There are also differences in the fields, where the dates. In particular, the expiry date of domain registration. The date indicated in this field may differ from the current ten years and less, because in .Com and .Net zones, there is the possibility of renewal for up to ten years.

And please note that the information obtained through the service WHO.IS, could be trusted, if not a few “buts”. For example, nobody can guarantee that when you change your contact information, organization or individual that will make these changes directly into the database logger. And not always an organization or individual who has bought a domain address, when you transfer it to another organization or individual, report it. Nevertheless, the WHO.IS service remains the primary method of obtaining information about domain.