What Is a Domain's WHOIS and What Is It For?

The WHOIS (in English it means “who is”), and we can ask every domain “who are you?”, but the truth is that the information they give us becomes scarcer every day, as data protection laws (GDPR and others) have been blocking more and more information. For example, we used to be able to find out the owner of a domain. But that is no longer possible. For instance, if we ask our domain mihosting.com “who are you?”, we get these results:

Domain Name: MIHOSTING.COM

Registry Domain ID: 78989635_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.publicdomainregistry.com Registrar URL: www.publicdomainregistry.com Updated Date: 2018-03-06T23:12:35Z Creation Date: 2001-10-25T21:32:55Z Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2025-10-25T21:32:55Z Registrar: PDR Ltd. d/b/a PublicDomainRegistry.com Registrar IANA ID: 303 Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientTransferProhibited Registry Registrant ID: GDPR Masked Registrant Name: GDPR Masked Registrant Organization: GDPR Masked Registrant Street: GDPR Masked Registrant City: GDPR Masked Registrant State/Province: Madrid Registrant Postal Code: GDPR Masked Registrant Country: ES Registrant Phone: GDPR Masked Registrant Phone Ext: Registrant Fax: GDPR Masked Registrant Fax Ext: Registrant Email: Registry Admin ID: GDPR Masked Admin Name: GDPR Masked Admin Organization: GDPR Masked Admin Street: GDPR Masked Admin City: GDPR Masked Admin State/Province: GDPR Masked Admin Postal Code: GDPR Masked Admin Country: GDPR Masked Admin Phone: GDPR Masked Admin Phone Ext: Admin Fax: GDPR Masked Admin Fax Ext: Admin Email: Registry Tech ID: GDPR Masked Tech Name: GDPR Masked Tech Organization: GDPR Masked Tech Street: GDPR Masked Tech City: GDPR Masked Tech State/Province: GDPR Masked Tech Postal Code: GDPR Masked Tech Country: GDPR Masked Tech Phone: GDPR Masked Tech Phone Ext: Tech Fax: GDPR Masked Tech Fax Ext: Tech Email: Name Server: ns-1200.awsdns-22.org Name Server: ns-1697.awsdns-20.co.uk Name Server: ns-271.awsdns-33.com Name Server: ns-813.awsdns-37.net DNSSEC: Unsigned Registrar Abuse Contact Email: Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: +1.2013775952 URL of the ICANN WHOIS Data Problem Reporting System: https://wdprs.internic.net/

90% of WHOIS data is now hidden, but what’s still of value?

As you can see in the example above, there’s practically no data left after GDPR. But there is still some useful information. For example:

• Expiration date
• Date of the last change to the domain.
• The registering company of the domain.
• The status the domain is in. This is very useful information if you want to transfer a domain, since the WHOIS will tell you whether the domain is in an “Active” state, which is the state that allows you to transfer the domain.
• The state and country of the domain owner.
• DNS names: This data can indicate which hosting company a domain is hosted with.

And that’s all. Though they remain very useful and important pieces of information.

The information detailed above is public and available to everyone.

Where can I view a domain’s WHOIS data?

You can use our website to look up the WHOIS of any domain you want: https://www.mihosting.com/dominios/whois/