[dns-operations] Safe public whois site/tool?

[Patrick Mevzek]

On 2019-03-05 20:50 -0500, Doug Barton <dougb at dougbarton.email> wrote:
> I know that there are a lot of public whois sites, and purveyors of 
> domain name tools, but I also know that a non-trivial number of them are 
> scams, to the extent that some of them will even register good names out 
> from under you if you use them.

There is only one good answer to this case, and it works all the time:
use the registry website for the relevant TLD!

First hop at https://www.iana.org/domains/root/db to find the registry 
website and then go to it, there is almost always a web whois interface 
there.

Guaranteed authoritative answer (where other websites may only show 
cached data) and no risks of information leaks or domains being suddenly 
registered.

A bit more tedious for thin registries right now, but this is basically 
only .COM/.NET and that particular case will cease to exist soon.

If you use any other kind of website, you can have as guarantee for what 
they do with your data, only what they write in their TOS or equivalent 
and what you believe they will really do or not.
-- 
Patrick Mevzek