Storing Whois

Whois-Search · Jul 18, 2004

If i was to store old whois a bit like the www.whois.sc/whois-history/
Service.....

is it legal to store old whois information ?

You can not store UK whois information for example because the database is copyrighted, does this apply to the .com and .net databases ?

Could I ask for whois.sc to remove my details for example ? would they have to comply ? under which law ?

What data protection law would apply ? If i'm in the UK it would be www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk but it would also depend on where I hosted the information ?

or is it a public database and they can cache it all they want ?

flatt · Jul 19, 2004

I would say a possible factor is where you have registered your domains? If you are (and were?) dealing with a registrar from the UK, you may have a legal case. Still then, probably doubtful.

In the U.S., copyright law does not apply to facts. A classic example is that phone books cannot be copyrighted here. I would assume the whois database would fall into the same catagory. The (com/net) whois is a public database, it is not copyrighted (as you stated, country codes such as .uk may be different). Currently, there is nothing legally stopping me from copying data as much data from the database and storing it as long as I want in any form I want. The web infrastructure is still quite American-centric, both ICANN and NetSol are US entities that are bound by American law. Unless WIPO has addressed this (and I couldn't tell you), your whois data is probably bound by US law.

Ultimately, it might be easiest to just send a friendly email asking whois.sc to remove your information. There is probably little need to get the courts involved.

serra · Jul 21, 2004

So did you e-mail them yet?

Whois-Search · Jul 21, 2004

Thanks for the advice I was more interested in what would happen if I developed old-whois.com

serra · Jul 21, 2004

IC. Well, definteley lost advantage to the existing one since they have data in the previous years. It's like buying a house or property, I would want the data back to the original purchase.