In the 2009 RAA, the presence of an Admin and a Tech email address is required. The presence of a Registrant email address is optional. In the 2013 RAA, the Admin, Tech, and Registrant email addresses are each required to be present.
1. Is there presence of an email address?
(i.e., field is not blank)
a. Registrant email address
Yes – Pass
No – Fail: 2013 RAA || Pass: 2009 RAA
b. Tech email address
Yes – Pass
No – Fail
c. Admin email address
Yes – Pass
No – Fail
2. Does the email address only contain permissible characters?
(i.e., as provided for within the RFC 5322)
a. Registrant, b. Tech, and c. Admin email addresses
Yes – Pass
No – Fail
3. Is there presence of an “@” symbol in the email address?
a. Registrant, b. Tech, and c. Admin email addresses
Yes – Pass
No – Fail
4. Is there presence of a domain component?
(i.e., the characters following the “@” symbol)
a. Registrant, b. Tech, and c. Admin email addresses
Yes – Pass
No – Fail
5. Is the domain component in a TLD, which is resolvable on the Internet?
(see IANA’s Root Zone Database: http://www.iana.org/domains/root/db)
a. Registrant, b. Tech, and c. Admin email addresses
Yes – Pass
No – Fail
6. Is the domain component syntactically valid?
(i.e., the component following the “@” symbol meets requirements)
a. Registrant, b. Tech, and c. Admin email addresses
Yes – Pass
No – Fail
7. Is there presence of local component?
(i.e., the characters preceding the “@” symbol)
a. Registrant, b. Tech, and c. Admin email addresses
Yes – Pass
No – Fail
8. Is the local component syntactically valid?
(i.e., the component preceding the “@” symbol meets requirement)
a. Registrant, b. Tech, and c. Admin email addresses
Yes – Pass
No – Fail
The operability criteria for email address are a combination of direct (i.e., sending an email) and indirect (i.e., server communication) methods to validate an email address.
A "No" response for any of these tests, except for an omitted Registrant email address subject to the 2009 RAA requirements, will be considered a failure for the contact field. A missing Registrant email address subject to the 2009 RAA will be noted, but not counted against the domain/registrar.
To provide comments on WHOIS ARS or suggestions to improve WHOIS ARS reports and validation criteria, please email: globalsupport@icann.org.