If you have spent money on a website, your branding becomes integrated with your domain name. That is the www.yourcompanyname.ca
This domain name becomes critical to keep your website and email running. It is synonymous with your brand recognition and communication. However most companies pay very little attention to it beyond paying the bill once a year.
I have seen many companies become confused, and lose their domains because they either ;
- don’t know who their domain registrar is
- don’t have access to the registrar
- have incorrect registration contact info
This very small fee (approx $15-25/year) can make or brake your online reputation.
Things have been changing lately in regards to domain registrations/ renewals. The the evolution of the Whois Accuracy Program (WAP) is becoming more strict.
WHAT IS THE WHOIS ACCURACY PROGRAM?
The Whois Accuracy Program (WAP) was created by ICANN, the body that oversees internet namespaces such as .com/.net/.org etc in co-operation with various Law Enforcement Agencies (LEA) in attempt to increase accuracy of data supplied in domain Whois records
In this stage of the program what is required is that at certain specific points in a domain name’s life cycle, domain registrants must complete an action that attests to the accuracy of the data supplied in the Registrant data supplied.
Key domain lifecycle points or events that trigger the WAP are:
- Registration, renewal or transfer of a domain name using a new (previously unverified) contact data.
- Modification of a domain’s Whois record to new values that are not previously verified.
- If an administrative email such as a renewal notice, or a Whois Data Reminder Policy (WDRP) bounces or is otherwise undeliverable.
In any of these case, a Whois Accuracy Program process is initialized which takes the form of sending emails to the Registrant (yes, this can mean sending this notice to the same address that bounced and started this process in the first place), requesting them to verify their Whois data. This normally takes the form of visiting a web page that displays the current Registrant data for a domain, and clicking on a button that asserts that the information is true and accurate.
The initialization of this process commences a time limited process (we refer to this process internally as the “Domain DOOMSDAY CLOCK”, which is 15 days in length.
YOUR DOMAIN WILL CEASE FUNCTIONING IF YOU FAIL TO CONFIRM YOUR DATA
If the Whois data remains unverified after 15 days, the Registrar must suspend the domain, causing it to cease resolving over the internet, until such time as it can verified.
Whenever one of your domains hits an event outlined above, you will be receiving an email notice from the registrar asking you to “Click this link to verify your Whois data“. Even though it looks like an obvious phishing attempt, it isn’t.
Avoid suspension- Keep your domain whois info up to date!
What can you do?
- Keep you domain registrar login information
- keep the registrant/ admin and billing contact info and email up to date.
- Be aware of when changes are being made to your domain
- Don’t leave this to someone else
- Never register your domain in someone else’s name
- Take responsibility.
Excerpts have been taken from a blog post at Easy DNS. They explained it well. Full article located here: http://blog.easydns.org/2015/05/20/unfortunately-we-have-renewed-our-icann-accreditation/