Thick WHOIS is On Its Way to .com

[Acorn Newsbot]

Current plan is to introduce it for new domains by May 2018. ICANN has opened a comment period about the implementation of Thick Whois in existing top level domains including .com and .net. .Com and .net currently use what’s called a “Thin whois”. In thin whois, the registrar (e.g. GoDaddy) manages the customer information portion…

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[Admin]

I've not heard of thick whois but this sounds like a good thing....only have to look in one place for all the info you want?

 

[Edwin]

It's fantastic news if it guarantees a "real" renewal date - there have been plenty of issues over the years of registrars populating the whois with information out of sync with the registry, meaning people thought their domain had been successfully renewed when it hadn't.

 

[aZooZa]

A spammer's dream. No rate limiting for 2nd level referrals.

 

[Azam.net]

Seems like a positive development in one sense, but, as aZooZa says above, it will increase the likelihood of spam. The article linked to above states:

"On the other side of the coin, these rate limits are in place to prevent spammers from downloading registrants’ contact info. It might be easier for fraudsters and spammers to get your data once thick whois is implemented."