: Is it illegal to operate Domain WHOIS lookup website? I have been getting Abuse Report via my Hosting company which is reported by other people, and my host has been threatening to terminate

@Gonzalez347

no, the Whois database is designed to display the contact information for domain owners, you are just providing a way to access that data, just like many other websites. ICANN takes no stance on websites of this nature, and it seems likely they won't, since they are the ones who require public Whois information.

Your host may not know any better (esp the agents) and you may want to try to escalate the issue

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@Courtney195

Whois information provided by ICANN is public information for anyone to see.

If you are somehow displaying private whois information that hasn't been made public than this could be an issue.

But it sounds like you are only displaying the information that has been made public by the domain owners.

The abuse reports that you are receiving sound similar to DMCA takedown requests. Anyone is able to send DMCA notices. And because the legal threat of a webhosting company being sued is high enough, most webhosting companies will just shut you down if they receive any of these threats/requests. It's a very unfortunate thing. And it leads to a lot of abuse and misuse.

The safest thing you can do is remove any content that your webhosting company wants you to, even if you do not believe it is in the requester's legal right to ask you to do so. This will hopefully keep you in good standing with your hosting provider.

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