Over the last couple of weeks you may have seen a number of communications from 123-reg and others relating to some changes that The Internet Corporation for Assigned Domains and Numbers (ICANN) has made to global domain policy. This policy change has been made to introduce an added layer of security on the internet to keep customers online.

Domain Registration Changes

As of 1^st January 2014, ICAAN, the body responsible for overseeing the co-ordination of the global internet system incorporated changes which has seen registrars, like ourselves, having to ask customer’s to verify their WHOIS contact information for all new domain registrations, domain transfers and registrant contact modifications.

It is important to state that these changes have been made by ICANN and not 123-reg and it is very important to us that you understand why this needs to be done and to show you exactly how these changes can be applied, easily and with very little time on your side.

What do you need to do?

ICANN has deemed this process necessary whenever a Registrant changes any of the following details:

• Registrant First Name
• Registrant Last Name
• Registrant Email Address

The verification email is sent upon any modification of a customer’s contact details – even if it is a phone number change, if the email address associated with the domain has not been verified already. To help you better understand how this process will work:

• If you are the owners of example.com and you changed your phone number on 1^st January (the phone number associated with the domain), you will receive a validation email.
•  Any customer that verifies their domain name will only have to verify it again if the same customer changes their email address that is associated with their domain name.

The most important thing is that your domain is not suspended so to help prevent this, we have made the process simple and extremely easy for you. If you have or will make any future changes, the following shows you exactly what will happen and what you need to do.

• After making changes, you will automatically receive an email from services@123-reg.co.uk
• Contained in this email is a link to verify-whois.com which you will need to click and verify your address.
• Unfortunately, if you do fail to verify this within 15 days, your domain name will be suspended by ICANN.  If a domain is suspended it will be re-directed to a holding page that will give the affected customer the ability to have the verification email re-sent, thus un-suspending the domain.
• We advise all customer’s to verify via as soon as possible via the email link to avoid this from happening.

What does a suspension mean?

• Suspension means that all DNS settings will not work – this includes MX records and any email address associated with the account.
• So if this is the case, the any affected customer should change the email address associated with the domain from the Control Panel with a new address that they have access to (not one linked to the domain) – this will trigger a verification email being sent to the new address so the customer can verify the domain and have the domain un-suspended.
• Please remember that if a domain is suspended it does not mean that an affected customer has lost control of this domain. However, it will remain suspended until the domain is verified through the verification email sent out by 123-reg.

So what should you do now?

It is critical that you do ensure that your domain name is associated with a valid email address, which is different to your domain name. The last thing we want is for you to make a change and we send the verification to an incorrect email address. Keeping these details up to date will help us to ensure the smooth running of your domain name.

We are always on hand if you do get stuck, however. If you do need any help, support or guidance on any of these matters, simply get in touch and a member of the team will be happy to assist you. Just head over to https://www.123-reg.co.uk/support/