Emails for international domains now need to be verified.

As of January 1, 2014, changes related to Whois data for international domains came into effect. ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) now requires registrants to confirm the contact information specified in the Registrant field of their domain data.

Verifying registrant contact information

The Registrant field contact information for each gTLD (international second-level domain) must be confirmed within 15 days after:

a) the domain is registered from a contact that has not yet been verified;

b) a domain transfer is carried out;

c) the registrant's contact information has changed.

How does contact information verification work?

Beginning January 1, 2014, a notification will be sent to the contact email specified in the domain's Registrant field, asking the registrant to verify their email address. This email will contain a link that must be followed within 15 days. If the registrant does not confirm their email within 15 days, the domain will be locked (the domain's name servers will redirect to a white lock page). The lock page will state that the domain was disabled because the registrant's contact information was not verified, and will request that the domain owner contact their registrar to activate the domain.

Some important points

• An email will be sent to the contact email address immediately after the email address is linked to the domain. Additional reminders will be sent on days 7 and 14 if the address has not yet been confirmed by then.
• The confirmation email is sent from the registrar's address. This is a mandatory notification and cannot be unsubscribed from.
• Until the 15-day verification period expires, the domain can be used as usual.
• Once a year, an additional email will be sent to the registrant's email address. This email is intended to verify that emails are being delivered to that email address.

The goal of these ICANN innovations is, first and foremost, to keep domain contact information up-to-date and accurate. We hope these new rules won't cause you any inconvenience when working with international domains. The main thing is to specify an email address you actually use in your domain contact information and monitor your incoming email.

Want to check out how ICANN's new rule works?Register a new gTLD domain right now!