In the past, if you were looking to register a domain, it was not enough to simply record your own contact details on the Whois database: you also needed to name an ad­min­is­trat­or and a tech­ni­cian. These are referred to as Admin-C and Tech-C. Ad­di­tion­ally, if a name server is delegated for the re­gistered domain, then the re­spect­ive con­tract­ing authority (the registry) also requires the contact in­form­a­tion for a zone ad­min­is­trat­or (known as Zone-C). We’ll take you through the tasks that these different roles have as well as their rights and re­spons­ib­il­it­ies.

General Data Pro­tec­tion Reg­u­la­tion impacts on Whois in­form­a­tion

With the im­ple­ment­a­tion of the General Data Pro­tec­tion Reg­u­la­tion (GDPR) in the EU, some changes have been made to the available in­form­a­tion on the Whois database. The GDPR was im­ple­men­ted in March 2018 in an effort to protect personal in­di­vidu­al in­form­a­tion from cor­por­a­tions who might obtain this in­form­a­tion in an illegal manner, or who might seek to pass this in­form­a­tion on to other entities without the in­di­vidu­al’s consent. Pre­vi­ously the Whois database included the first name of the domain owner, admin-c and tech-c, aswell as their contact number and email address. It now con­tra­venes GDPR policy to do this, so if a domain is re­gistered within the EU, the Whois directory entry for that domain just contains “Unknown” in the relevant personal in­form­a­tion fields. A few countries have come up with their own le­gis­la­tion that addresses this. In Germany, for example, the DENIC (body that regulates .de domains) have decided to replace Tech-C, Zone-C and Admin-C in­form­a­tion, instead providing two non-personal email addresses for any queries. This means that in order to find out personal in­form­a­tion about these in­di­vidu­als, the person querying must email an in­ter­me­di­ary so that it can be as­cer­tained what in­form­a­tion they are looking for and for what purposes, before divulging personal details. Whilst Nominet (UK domain registry) have not in­tro­duced specific reg­u­la­tions targeting whois clas­si­fic­a­tion, this does not mean that they will not follow Germany’s lead in the future.

Domain owner

In the eyes of the registry, the domain holder is seen as a contract partner in domain re­gis­tra­tion. If you decide to register a web address, then you receive ownership of the domain and so hold the rights to this material. But a domain owner doesn’t ne­ces­sar­ily have to be an actual person. If you want to register a web address for your business, for example, then you can list the company name as the domain holder. Shared ownership is also possible. But if you do choose to register your domain under your business rather than a person, the name listed must be the company’s full legal title. Other re­quire­ments in addition to the domain owner’s name include a re­gistered address, a telephone number, and an e-mail address. Simply giving a mailbox won’t suffice. Despite needing to provide this in­form­a­tion for re­gis­tra­tion purposes, it will now no longer be available to anyone looking up your domain in­form­a­tion on the whois database.

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Admin-C

After the domain owner has been listed, you’ll need to name a real person as the ad­min­is­trat­ive point of contact for the domain. This Admin-C is appointed by the domain owner and receives full access rights to the domain. This means that the admin is entitled to control of the domain operation and granted the cor­res­pond­ing re­spons­ib­il­ity to decide matters without needing per­mis­sion from the domain owner. In cases of private domain re­gis­tra­tion, it’s quite typical for the domain owner to also take on the role of Admin-C as well. But other companies may choose to leave this task to a spe­cial­ised service operator, allowing an expert to handle their domain ad­min­is­tra­tion. The required in­form­a­tion for re­gis­ter­ing an Admin-C on the Whois database is exactly the same as is needed for re­gis­tra­tion of a domain owner: a re­gistered address, a contact number, and an e-mail address. As before, this in­form­a­tion will no longer be available to the general public.

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Changing the Admin-C

As the domain holder, you reserve the right to change the Admin-C for your domain. To make this change, you simply have to contact the internet service provider with whom you re­gistered the domain. They’ll usually have a form available for this, which you can simply fill out. In some cases, charges for pro­cessing this in­form­a­tion may apply. In cases of an Admin-C change, it’s only the ad­min­is­trat­ive contact that needs to be altered and rewritten. The ownership of the domain can be left unchanged.

Liability

In general, since the Admin-C has full access rights and no re­stric­tions, he or she is seen as acting on behalf of the domain owner. As a result, the ad­min­is­trat­ive contact person is often held ac­count­able for rights vi­ol­a­tions, even those as­so­ci­ated to the domain itself. The question of the extent to which the Admin-C can be liable for in­fringe­ments of licence in the re­gis­tra­tion of a domain name and the content of a website is a difficult topic that has been debated many times in court – with differing outcomes.

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Tech-C and Zone-C

The contact for technical queries relating to a domain is known as the technical contact (Tech-C). This role can be a named in­di­vidu­al, but it can also serve as a general term for a group of people (like the IT de­part­ment at a company). Although the Tech-C does need to be de­term­ined by the domain holder, unlike the Admin-C, this role carries no liability and offers no control over solutions and domain transfers. And the tasks assigned to the Tech-C are often taken on by the internet service provider. Replacing the registrar data, ad­min­is­trat­ive in­form­a­tion, as well as the technical contact details of a website with that of the internet service provider’s, carries a great advantage; personal in­form­a­tion remains com­pletely anonymous and not only does this provide pro­tec­tion against spam, but it also prevents in­form­a­tion from being misused by third parties. Benefit from this great function with IONOS’s private domain re­gis­tra­tion.

The role of zone ad­min­is­trat­or for a domain is referred to as Zone-C. This role involves being re­spons­ible for the main­ten­ance of the domain name server, and so the Zone-C is contacted for in­form­a­tion related to a domain’s DNS records. If a domain hasn’t been delegated its own name server, then the internet service provider handles this. The Whois records for the Tech-C and the Zone-C require the same in­form­a­tion as for the domain owner and the Admin-C: a name (the official legal name if it’s a company name), a postal address as well as a telephone number and an e-mail address. Once again, this in­form­a­tion has now become clas­si­fied to the public.

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