Who owns a domain name?

If you are looking for a Domain name that is already taken, and you want to know who owns it, you can check it in WHOIS (“who is”) databases.

The simpliest way to do it directly from Domaintyper is that you click on the ‘WHOIS’ link under the taken domain after you searched for it.

This takes you to a page where you can check all kind of information regarding the domain itself.

Normally the contact information of the individual owner is returned. However, some registrars offer “private registration”, in which case the contact information of the registrar is shown instead.

WHOIS record contains the following information:

1. The registrant information. Details of the person who registered the domain name including their postal and email addresses and phone number.
2. The contacts: Each domain name is associated with three contacts - Administrative, Billing and Technical. In most cases, all the three would belong to the same person (the registrant). Note: The technical contact might be of the company hosting the domain name.
3. The creation and expiration date of the domain name
4. The name servers associated with the domain name

Where Did Whois Come From?

When the Internet was young, a single organization handled all registrations and a centralized system easily provided information on domains, the people associated with them, and other information. When commercial third-parties began handling domain name registration, and InterNIC. the Internet Network Information Center was formed to take on the role of responsibility for the allocation of domain names and IP (Internet Protocol) addresses, and the information during this period was available through internic.net, which was administered by Network Solutions, Inc. and AT&T. General Atomics had a brief part as well, but there contract was cancelled early.

This role with regard to generic top-level domains (gTLDS) then passed to ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, in 1999 and WHOIS came into being, able to handle a variety of TLDs. With the multiplication of country code top-level domains (ccTLDs), WHOIS servers multiplied as well and it became an issue to choose the appropriate WHOIS server for the particular query one wished to make, although the process for gTLDs remains somewhat more straightforward. A prospective global system is being looked into by a committee formed by the Internet Engineering  Task Force, which since 2004 has been laying out a new industry standard called CRISP (Cross Registry Information Service Protocol).

How to check WHOIS

There are several sites providing WHOIS information: