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September 16th, 2007 by 
Jay Westerdal
The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) looks like they are in whois hot water. John Berryhill reports that the whois record for the group that administrates arbitration on people’s domain names has an invalid phone number. WIPO list a phone number of 999-999-9999 as their Registrant phone number. Part of the obligation every domain owner has to ICANN is to keep their records accurate and up to date. Failure to do so can result in deletion 
of the domain by their registrar if ICANN received a report of invalid information. John has already reported WIPO for bad data. It is not required that a registrant even share a phone number. It is only required that the administrative and technical contacts have phone numbers. However on the reporting tool there is a space to report invalid phone number for the registrant.
John Berryhill is an attorney that specializes in domain names. He once defended a client that was using proxy whois. The person who filed the complaint at WIPO cited proxy whois as evidence of bad faith. Mr. Berryhill then submitted WIPO.org’s whois record to the panel stating that WIPO had proxy information as well. I think the argument was made. Having proxy whois is not bad faith however WIPO updated their whois record to remove the proxy information.
Who are the Whois Police? Well that would be ICANN. They ask the registrar to take action within 15 days. I checked out ICANN.org
’s whois record and oops. They seem to have an error too. ICANN’s zipcode is 90292 but they list 92092. Their error has been there for a few years. I reported it once but it never got fixed. I guess I should use the inaccurate whois reporting tool and see if ICANN will enforce whois accuracy against themselves. 
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Posted in ICANN |
3 Comments »
September 16th, 2007 at 5:54 pm
that’s too funny, wipo should wipo
September 16th, 2007 at 7:09 pm
ICANN’s mistake is a pretty honest one, though.
UPDATE BY JAY: I agree, but it is still funny in an ironic way.
September 17th, 2007 at 6:44 pm
Someone registered three domains names (com, net, org) that are almost the same as the charity I help out.
After sending them some letters, they went out of business and disappeared.
I contacted Go Daddy to report that the Whois phone number was disconectd, e-mail sent to e-mail address listed bounced, and that registered mail sent to the address in Whois was returned as undeliverable.
We received a reply from Go Daddy that they were suspending the domains and if the Whois information was not updated in a brief time, the domain would be canceled.
We waited 60 days, and contacted Go Daddy again. They said they would not cancel the domains. They would only suspend them until they expire in 2012.
It was pointed out that this is against ICANN rules and their own registration agreements. They again replied that they will not cancel these domains and only suspend them until they expire in 2012.
This means that the person who registered them can enter new Whois information and reactivate these domains at any time.
How is this a punishment?
How can Go Daddy get away with not canceling these domains?
How many hundreds or even thousands of domains with inaccurate Whois information are being held by Go Daddy as suspended but not canceled?
Is there anything that can be done to force Go Daddy to cancel these domains?
Telling them I would file a formal complaint with ICANN was ignored.
It seems as though the “Whois Police” turn a blind eye to even the most blatant disregard of ICANN rule 3.7.7.2:
“A Registered Name Holder’s willful provision of inaccurate or unreliable information, its willful failure promptly to update information provided to Registrar, or its failure to respond for over fifteen calendar days to inquiries by Registrar concerning the accuracy of contact details associated with the Registered Name Holder’s registration shall constitute a material breach of the Registered Name Holder-registrar contract and be a basis for cancellation of the Registered Name registration.”