Germany’s .DE domain will show even less information in Whois going forward.
Whois information for one of the world’s largest country code domain names is about to change.
DENIC, the group that runs Germany’s .DE domain name, announced changes that will slim down an already restricted Whois output. The group reviewed its Whois policy as GDPR gets ready to go into force.
The change will involve adding two non-personalized email addresses that will be managed by the registrar. One address will be for general and technical requests and the other will be for abuse.
Whois records will show the domain status, the two email addresses, and technical information (e.g., nameservers). Public Whois records will not show any personal data.
Users who show DENIC that they have a legitimate interest in personal data will be able to request it through a semi-automated system.
DENIC already shows limited information in Whois compared to what other top level domains show thanks to Germany’s Federal Data Protection Law.
The .De domain has over 16 million registrations.
I hope this never happens to .Com domains! That would be the end of domaining as we know it.