What is WHOIS?

The term “WHOIS” is from the English phrase “who is?”.

It is used in the field of domain names, and is a directory (also called WHOIS directory) containing technical and legal information about a domain name.

This information allows a user to find out who the owner of the domain name is and the person to contact in case of any problems, as well as the party responsible for administering the domain name.

The fields shown in a WHOIS query are particular to different domain name registers, but generally contain the following information:

• the domain name queried;
• the domain name owner’s name, address, telephone (and possibly fax) number and email address;
• the NIC IDs of the owner, the technical contact and the billing contact;
• the addresses (or IP addresses) of the DNS servers;
• the creation, modification and expiry dates of the domain name queried in the WHOIS search;
• the name, address, telephone (and possibly fax) number and email address of the domain name’s technical and billing contacts;

If the WHOIS query returns no result when searching for a particular domain name, this means that the domain name is available.

WHOIS conditions of use

The Data in our WHOIS page is provided to you for information purposes only, and may be used to assist you in obtaining information about or related to a domain name's registration record. Namebay makes this information available 'as is', and does not guarantee its accuracy.

By submitting a WHOIS query, you agree that you will use this data only for lawful purposes and that, under no circumstances will you use this data to:
(a) allow, enable, or otherwise support the transmission by e-mail, telephone, or facsimile of mass, unsolicited, commercial advertising or solicitations; or
(b) enable high volume, automated, electronic processes that send queries or data to the systems of any Registry Operator or ICANN-Accredited registrar, except as reasonably necessary to register domain names or modify existing registrations.

Glossary

The NIC: the Network Information Centre is the organism that manages a domain name. For example, the NIC managing the extension “.fr” is AFNIC.