DENIC upgraded its whois services with effect from 22 September 2009. The most essential amendment is the improved protection of domain holder data. Users must now decipher a Captcha to get access to them. This ensures that domain queries can only be submitted by authorized persons and not by automated scripts.

Besides the web-based whois, which is located at www.denic.de, DENIC still offers an additional command-line whois for technical questions, which is accessible at whois.denic.de. However, in future this whois service will only deliver the data required to solve a technical problem, such as name server and technical contact. To obtain data about domain holders, users must take the new Captcha-secured access of the web-based whois.

Example

Background information

The whois information service was first specified in 1982 in RFC 812 and again in 1985 in RFC 954. It was further developed in RFC 3912. The intention of the service is to offer a TCP-based directory service that provides information about network resources such as Internet numbers, AS numbers, and also domains. This shall facilitate the cooperation of network administrators and operators in a heterogenic network. Also today DENIC - like other TLD registries - operates its own whois service in accordance with RFC 3912 (WHOIS Protocol Specification: http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3912).
Further information about whois is available online on the following DENIC webpages:
http://www.denic.de/en/background/whois-service.html

About DENIC eG

As the central registry, DENIC administers the now 13 million domains under the Top Level Domain .de and thus provides a crucial resource for users of the Internet. It sees its role as that of a competent, impartial provider of services for all domain holders and Internet users. With more than 117 employees, DENIC creates the foundation through its work for German Internet pages and e-mail addresses to be accessible throughout the world. The about 270 members of the Cooperative are IT or telecommunications businesses based in Germany and elsewhere. Working in cooperation with them and other partners, DENIC is committed to guarantee the secure operation of the Internet and its further worldwide development as a not-for-profit organization. It operates the automatic electronic registration system for its members, runs the domain database for the Top Level Domain .de and the German ENUM domain (.9.4.e164.arpa), manages the name server services for the .de zone at currently 15 locations distributed throughout the world, and renders a considerable contribution to the further organizational and technical development of the Internet in cooperation with international bodies (e.g. ICANN, CENTR, IETF).

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