It’s likely that you have arrived at this page because you have just discovered that your website has been replaced by a holding page from your domain name registrar, with wording along the lines of:

"Please be advised that as of the 1st January 2014 it has now become a mandatory requirement from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Name and Numbers (ICANN) that all ICANN accredited registrars verify the WHOIS contact information for all new domain registrations, domain transfers and registrant contact modifications."

For reasons that still remain anonymous ICANN have decided that the inaccuracies of contact information on domain WHOIS information must be tackled with the utmost urgency and are forcing domain owners to verify this information by sending a verification link to the registered email address held against the domain. The fact that this policy change has flown under the radar or that the email that is received looks suspiciously like a scam email seems to have passed ICANN by and as a result many website owners are now experiencing severe disruption to their businesses whilst the verification is re-approved.

We are advising all domain owners to contact their domain registrar to ask whether their domain needs to be verified to comply with the ICANN requirements. Your domain registrar should provide a way for you to manually request the verification email be re-sent which will contain the link required to complete the verification process.

Who are ICANN?

ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Name and Numbers) are the global authority that co-ordinate the function and distribution of domain names.

Who does this effect?

As far as we can tell from the little information that exits from ICANN this change should only effect domains ending in .com, .net or .org. However we would encourage all domain owners to contact the registrar for further information and confirmation.

How do I check my WHOIS information?

If you are unsure what information is currently held on your WHOIS data you can check by going to http://who.is and searching for your domain. Not all WHOIS information is the same but you are looking for the Registrant Contact Email. This is the email address that the verification email will be sent to.

Next steps?

NOTE: Please be aware the many phishing scams have already surfaced taking advantage of this situation, we urge you to confirm any email you receive with your registrar before acting upon it.

If your website has already been suspended then you will need to start the verification process by clicking the link in the email you received from ICANN. You may have received an email similar to this from your registrar (this one is from 123-reg):

Please be advised that as of the 1st January 2014 it has now become a mandatory requirement from the Internet 
Corporation for Assigned Name and Numbers (ICANN) that all ICANN accredited registrars verify the WHOIS 
contact information for all new domain registrations, domain transfers and registrant contact modifications.

You have received this email as you have recently modified the registrant contact information for one or more 
of your domains with the following registrant details:

Name: 
Email Address: 

Under the changes requested by ICANN you need to verify your registrant email address. Please click on the 
link below to verify this email address.

https://www.verify-whois.com/?xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

You have 15 days from the time of the original contact modification to verify your email address.  If your 
email address is not verified within these 15 days the domain name(s) will be suspended until the email 
address is verified.

Once the link above is clicked this email address and the domains listed below will be instantly verified.

Please note this email is not a phishing email and is being sent to you following the change outlined 
above from the 1st January 2014 by ICANN.

Kind Regards

If you have not received this email, or deleted it as suspected junk, then you should contact your domain registrar requesting the email to be resent. Most registrars will provide the ability for you to place this request through the domain control panel on their website. If you do not own or no longer have access to the email address listed on the WHOIS information then please contact your domain registrar about how to update this information (many registrars will allow you to do this through a control panel but others will require manual intervention).

Once you have clicked the verification link the holding page that you website currently shows should change to say that the domain has been verified. Unfortunately now the only thing to do is wait until the DNS updates that have been made (as part of the suspension) are reversed and propagated throughout the Internet. This can take up to 48 hours but in most cases it will be considerably faster.

We would encourage all domain owners to complain to their registrar or ICANN about the severe lack of information distributed regarding this policy change. As a web development company objectsource is well aware of the detrimental effect an event such as this can have on your online business. If there is anything else we can do to help you to succeed in your on line endeavors please feel free to contact us.