June 2008
©2008 Telnic Limited. All rights reserved.
I. INTRODUCTION
In order to provide accurate information to users of the Whois system while respecting the privacy of .tel domain name registrants, ICANN and Telnic, in its capacity as the Sponsoring Organization and Registry Operator for the .tel top-level domain, have agreed on the following Whois policy.
Please note that, under this Whois Policy, personal information concerning domain name holders, and their technical, administrative and billing contacts will be available to third parties through the Whois system or the Special Access Service described below, even if the holders “opt out” of making their information available in response to Whois queries. For a summary of the circumstances in which information will be available, please see the table in Section IV.G below.
II. DEFINITIONS
Legal Person is defined in Section IV.B.
Natural Person is defined in Section IV.B.
Registry Operator the registry operator for the .tel top-level domain. The present
Registry Operator is Telnic.
Sponsoring Organization the entity responsible for the policies and deployment principles of the .tel top-level domain.
Telnic Telnic Limited, a limited liability company duly incorporated and validly existing under the laws of England and Wales, with its principal place of business at 37 Percy Street, London W1T 2DJ, United Kingdom, which is responsible, in accordance with an agreement with ICANN, for providing domain name registration services within the .tel top-level domain.
III. PARTIES SUBJECT TO THIS POLICY
This Policy, together with any interpretive guidelines issued by the Sponsoring
Organization, applies to:
(a) .tel domain name registrants; (b) .tel registrars; and
(c) the Registry Operator.
IV. WHOIS POLICY
A. Specification
Subject to any future policy regarding WHOIS data adopted by ICANN, domain name registrants will be required to provide correct and accurate contact information and, as permitted by applicable law, consent to selected information being made public for legitimate purposes.
Until a generally accepted specification replacing RFC 3912 is available, Telnic will provide RFC 3912 compliant WHOIS service. The specification contained in this Whois Policy is subject to change by agreement of Telnic and ICANN during the design process as well as during the IETF standards process. In addition, Telnic agrees to implement changes to this specification specified by ICANN to conform to IETF provreg working group’s protocol specification no later than 135 days after the IETF specification is adopted as a Proposed Standard [RFC 2026, section 4.1.1].
B. Data Provided In Response to WHOIS Queries
With respect to the amount and type of domain name registrant data provided in response to queries of the WHOIS service by the general public, the WHOIS service will distinguish between domain name registrants that are companies, businesses, partnerships, non-profit entities, associations, or other types of legal constructs (“Legal Persons”), and domain name registrants that are human beings, perceptible through the senses and subject to physical laws (“Natural Persons”). Domain name registrants will be required to specify whether they qualify as Legal Persons or Natural Persons by clicking the appropriate box during the registration process.
1. WHOIS Data for Legal Persons
Full WHOIS data for domain name registrants that are Legal Persons will be available to the general public at no cost. Queries of the WHOIS service related to Legal Persons will always return full and complete standard WHOIS data, including applicable personal data such as Registrant ID, Registrant Name, Organization, Address (street, city, state, postal code, and country), Phone Number, Facsimile Number, and Email Address. Legal Persons will not be permitted to opt out of disclosing such information in response to queries submitted to the WHOIS service.
The Registry Operator reserves the right, however, to take any preventive action necessary to prohibit any requestor of WHOIS data from using the WHOIS service to collect WHOIS data on Legal Persons for marketing purposes, spamming, data- mining, or unlawful purposes.
For the fields returned in response to queries of the WHOIS service for Legal Persons, and an example of a returned record, please see the “WHOIS Output Format Specification—Legal Persons” section (IV.D.1) below.
2. WHOIS Data for Natural Persons
Full WHOIS data for domain name registrants that are Natural Persons may or may not be available to the general public depending on whether the applicable domain name registrant elects to make his or her personal information available in response to queries of the WHOIS service.
Unlike Legal Persons, domain name registrants that are Natural Persons will be given the option to elect whether or not their personal information is disclosed by the WHOIS service in response to queries from the general public. The default option will be for all personal information to be disclosed by the WHOIS service. In order to override this default option, the domain name registrant that is a Natural Person will have to specifically elect not to have such personal information disclosed by clicking the appropriate box during the registration process.
a. Natural Persons Who Opt-In (Default Option)
For any domain name registrant that is a Natural Person and that does not elect to
have his or her personal information withheld from disclosure by the WHOIS service, queries by the general public of the WHOIS service related to such Natural Person
will return full and complete standard WHOIS data at no cost, including personal data such as Registrant ID, Registrant Name, Organization, Address (street, city, state, postal code, and country), Phone Number, Facsimile Number, and Email Address.
The Registry Operator reserves the right to take any preventive action necessary to prohibit any requestor of WHOIS data from using the WHOIS service to collect WHOIS data on Natural Persons for marketing purposes, spamming, data-mining, or unlawful purposes.
For the fields returned in response to queries of the WHOIS service for Natural Persons that opt-in to full disclosure (or that do not elect to change the default setting), and an example of a returned record, please see the “WHOIS Output Format Specification—Natural Persons (Opt-In)” section (IV.D.2) below.
b. Natural Persons Who Opt-Out
If a domain name registrant that is a Natural Person elects to withhold his or her personal information from disclosure by the WHOIS service, queries by the general public of the WHOIS service related to such Natural Person will return only limited WHOIS data, including Domain Name, Domain ID, Sponsoring Registrar, Sponsoring Registrar IANA ID, Domain Status, Registrant ID, Registrant Name, Name Server, created by registrar, last updated by registrar, domain registration date, domain expiration date, and domain last updated date. No personal information relating to the domain name registrant will be available through the WHOIS service for Natural Persons who have opted-out of disclosing such personal information.
Instead of such personal information, requestors of WHOIS data on such Natural Persons will be informed that the Natural Person has elected to withhold certain personal information from disclosure by the WHOIS service, and will be provided with a link to the Registry Operator’s Special Access Service. Through this Special Access Service, requestors will be able to obtain secure access to the personal
information of Natural Persons who have opted not to disclose such information in the
public WHOIS service. However such requestors must be able to demonstrate a legitimate need for access to such personal information—see the “Special Access Service” section (IV.B.3) below.
The Registry Operator reserves the right to take any preventive action necessary to prohibit any requestor of WHOIS data from using the WHOIS service to collect WHOIS data on Natural Persons for marketing purposes, spamming, data-mining, or unlawful purposes.
For the fields returned in response to queries of the WHOIS service for Natural Persons that opt-out of full disclosure, and an example of a returned record, please see the “WHOIS Output Format Specification—Natural Persons (Opt-Out)” section (IV.D.3) below.
3. Special Access Service
As described above, the WHOIS service will provide a link to the Special Access Service in response to queries for WHOIS data on Natural Persons that have opted not to disclose personal information. The Special Access Service will be a secure website operated by the Registry Operator through which requestors can obtain such personal information that has not been disclosed within the WHOIS service.
Requestors with a legitimate need to access undisclosed personal information of domain name registrants that are Natural Persons will be able to obtain such access, under certain terms and conditions. A Requestor will only be required to complete the online form described below in “Initial Sign-Up and Activation” upon initial use of the Special Access Service. Requestors will be permitted to complete this online sign-up and activation form at any time after the WHOIS service has been made
available to the public. Each subsequent time that a requestor needs to use the Special
Access Service, they will only need to follow the procedure described below in
“Online Use of Special Access Service.”
a. Initial Sign-Up and Activation
Before using the Special Access Service for the first time, a requestor must complete the online sign-up and activation process described below. A requestor will only be required to complete this step upon initial use of the Special Access Service. There will be no charge for this online sign-up and activation process.
The WHOIS service will direct the requestor to a secure online sign-up page for the Special Access Service. The requestor will be required to submit their Company Name, Contact Name, Address (street address, city, state, postal code, and country), Email Address and Telephone Number. To confirm that the requestor is a verifiable person or company a personal identification number and a URL link will be mailed or sent by courier to the postal address provided by the requestor. The cost of such courier service will be at the requestor’s expense.
The link that was sent to the requestor will take them to a secure Special Access Service activation page. The requestor will then enter their personal identification number in order to activate their Special Access Service account. Upon activation, a user name and password will be sent to the email address provided by the requestor above. The user name and password provided to the requestor will be used to access
the Special Access Service, subject to the terms and conditions being met for each new request.
b. Online Use of Special Access Service
After the requestor receives their user name and password via email, they will be able to consult the Special Access Service by using their user name and password to log into the Special Access Service.
After logging into the Special Access Service, the requestor will complete an information request form indicating the domain name about which additional information is requested, and they will be required to demonstrate a legitimate need to access this additional information by selecting the reason such access is requested
from a drop down menu. If the appropriate reason is not listed in the drop down menu,
the requestor must select “Other” and specify the reason. The requestor will also be required to agree (via a click through agreement) to accept the terms and conditions of access, which specify the following: (i) they have a legitimate reason for accessing the information, (ii) they will not use the data for marketing purposes, spamming, data- mining, or unlawful purposes, (iii) they will not share information derived from the Special Access Service with any individual or entity that is not bound by the terms of the Special Access Service except as necessary to accomplish the specified, legitimate purpose, (iv) they will not share their user name and password with any unauthorised third parties, (v) they understand and acknowledge that they will be accessing
personal information, and (vi) they understand and acknowledge that the Registry
Operator records information about all searches of the Special Access Service
(including the reason for such search).
To prevent data-mining and other forms of bulk data access, each Special Access Service request will be limited to five (5) queries per twenty four (24) hours. Telnic may, at its discretion, increase this limit without the need to request modification from ICANN.
The Registry Operator reserves the right to revoke any requestor’s right to use the Special Access Service or to take any other preventive action necessary to prohibit any requestor from using the Special Access Service to collect data on Natural Persons for marketing purposes, spamming, data-mining, or unlawful purposes.
For the fields returned in response to queries of the Special Access Service for Natural Persons that opt-out of full disclosure, and an example of a returned record, please see the “Output Format Specification—Special Access Service” section (IV.D.4)
below.
c. Record Retention
A requestor using the SAS will agree that Telnic may collect information about the number and type of searches conducted by the requestor including details about the search terms used and the result of such searches. Telnic will not disclose such information except:
(i) in aggregated form, from which a requestor is not identifiable;
(ii) in response to requests from law enforcement or regulatory authorities;
(iii) as required by law or legal process including subpoenas; and
(iv) as necessary to protect the safety, legal rights, or property of Telnic or any third party; provided, however that Telnic will notify the affected requestor via e-mail to the address listed in the requestor’s SAS account seven (7) days before disclosing information under the exception set forth in this Subsection (iv) unless Telnic makes a good faith determination based on information available to it at the time and without any obligation to seek additional information, that such disclosure would pose a threat to the safety or property of Telnic or any third party or would undermine Telnic’s or a third party’s efforts to establish, assert or defend its legal rights.
C. Additional Fields Capability
If necessary, the Registry Operator may introduce additional fields to the list of WHOIS fields described in this document. Those fields will be preceded and identified by appropriate tags.
By default, the WHOIS service searches for domain names. By using the following keywords, the search type can be determined:
Keywords (case insensitive)
Type
do, domain
Search for domain objects. Only the
“Domain Name” field is used
ho, host
Search only by name server objects. The input string is matched against “Host Name” or the “Host ID” field contents
Contact
Search for contact objects in the “Contact
ID” field
Registrar
Search for registrar objects in the “Registrar ID” or “Registrar Organization” field
ap, application
Search for an application object (i.e. for requests during the sunrise period). Input string is matched against the “Domain Name” or “Application ID” fields.
In addition, further restriction on the search can be requested by including the following keyword in the query:
Keywords (case insensitive)
Option
Id
Search is performed in the respective ID
field
Finally, the degree of detail shown in the response can be controlled by the following keywords:
Keywords (case insensitive)
Option
=, full
Always return the complete data, even if multiple entries are found
sum, summary
Always return summarized data, even if only a single entry is found
The last token in the input is taken as the search parameter.
If the search parameter is “help” and no object type is given, no search is performed, but a short summary about the input format is returned.
D. Output Format Specification
All lines in the response data are terminated by CR/LF pairs. Lines that contain comments, legal notes or similar, start with a percent sign (‘%’). If the output consists of multiple objects, they are separated by at least one empty line. The objects themselves (including the related sub objects, like referenced contacts of a domain) do not contain empty lines. If no objects match the search query, “NOT FOUND” is returned. The object data is composed of multiple key-value lines. Key and value of a key-value pair are separated by a colon (‘:’). The key may contain space characters.