A large-scale change in the domain name industry will be implemented from February 2017 to February 2019. .Com thin Whois registry will be converted to a thick Whois similar to .info and .biz.

There are two models of Whois registries. A thin registry collects only technical data such as registrar, domain status and creation and expiration dates. Thick Whois records contain registrant data such as contact information and assigned administrative and technical contact persons in addition to the technical data above.

The new policy, which applies to .net and .jobs as well, will be implemented in stages. The first stage takes place until 1 August 2017 during which VeriSign (a top-level domain registry) has to give its registrars the ability to submit thick Whois records both live and in bulk. The deadline to start submitting thick Whois for new registrations is 1 May 2018 though registrars may start from August 2017 as well. 1 February 2019 is the final deadline when registrars should provide Verisign with thick Whois for all existing registrations.

Then VeriSign will have amassed all Whois records for .com for the first time. There is an exemption process for local registrars who may be violating national privacy law if they transfer such data to a US company.

To read more on related ICANN’s policies, go to <What’s New in ICANN’s New Domain Transfer Policy?>.

Whois records can be checked in Whois lookups and together with reverse Whois lookups are used for research and cybercrime investigation. To learn more about this, visit <Let’s Talk about Cybercrime>.