Certified senders need to have an up-to-date, accurate, and transparent WHOIS record. A WHOIS record contains information about a company that registers a domain. The recorded information includes name and contact information of the company, registration date, name servers, expiration date, and more.
If a sender has a WHOIS record that has missing, obscured, or has privatized information, it can seem as if they are not taking full responsibility for their email program. And to qualify for the Certification program, certified senders should be easily reachable and proudly stand behind their email. Read below for detailed requirements.
Requirements
Certified senders are required to have a WHOIS record that:
- Is up to date and has not expired
- Includes correct information for all domains associated with certified IP addresses that:
- Appear in header or body text
- Are used for subscriber sign-up, preference, and unsubscribe sites
- Contains the sender's legal name
- Does not contain a domain by proxy
- Does not list a privacy service or hosting company
Updating a WHOIS record
Contact either your Email Service Provider (ESP), your domain hosting provider or domain registrar to update your WHOIS information.
To find the registrar, perform a WHOIS lookup for your domain and look at the registrar name and contact information.
For example:
If you look up the domain google.com, you will find this information under the registrar section:
- Registrar: MarkMonitor Inc.
- IANA ID: 292
- Abuse Contact Email: abusecomplaints@markmonitor.com
- Abuse Contact Phone: +1.2086851750
This means Google would contact MarkMonitor to update the WHOIS record.
WHOIS record examples
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Below is an example of an acceptable WHOIS Record:
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Below is an example of an unacceptable WHOIS Record:
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