ICANN says GoDaddy’s Whois contact form is OK
GoDaddy's WHOIS form was never about letting you talk—it was about satisfying a checkbox.
ICANN has published an advisory blessing GoDaddy's WHOIS contact form, even though the form won't let a submitter write their own message.
The requirement is simple: registrars must offer a way for the public to contact a domain registrant without exposing the registrant's direct details.
- ICANN decided that a structured form with no free-text field still meets the letter of the rule.
For anyone trying to reach a domain owner, the practical signal is blunt: the contact path is a forwarding service, not a conversation.
GoDaddy gets to keep its wall, and ICANN gets to keep its compliance fiction. The market absorbs another quiet precedent.
Buyers and sellers should read this as license for registrars to keep contact routes minimal, so expect the due-diligence burden to stay on the person chasing the answer.
The reporting is Domain Name Wire’s; the read above is Handlemart’s.
Read it on Domain Name Wire