A study conducted by the GAO revealed that 2.31 million domain names, 5.14 percent, have been registered with false information till now.


A study conducted by the U.S General Accountability Office revealed that 2.31 million domain names, 5.14 percent, have been registered with false information till now.

The study also revealed that 1.62 million have been registered with incomplete information in one or more fields required to be filled.

GAO estimated that 3.89 million domain names had atleast one false or incomplete information in the required Whois contact information field.

The GAO submitted 45 error reports, one for each domain name with false information, to the ICANN for further investigation. Out of the 45, 11 domain name owners provided updated information that were not false within 30 days of the submittion of the report.

One domain name was terminated and the remaining 33 were not updated or corrected.

According to the report, the Department of Commerce and ICANN have taken steps to ensure that the content provided in the Whois database is genuine. They have implemented a Registrar Accreditation Agreement. This agreement requires registrars to investigate if the provided data in the Whois contact information is genuine.

ICANN has also published additional guidance and information for registrars on their obligations to investigate false data and correct it.

To view the complete report, click here.

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