Whois
The registration of a domain name establishes who is the legal owner of a domain name. Only the owner is authorized to manage the DNS and is the one who can renew, cancel and move the domain name. The details of the owner and the administrative and technical contacts are recorded in a whois registry.
Most registries offer a whois feature, which can be used to find out the owner of a domain name. After entering a domain name, all known details of the owner are displayed to the whois user.
For certain domain extensions, including .nl, only general information is shown. To protect the privacy of the owner and contacts, their contact information is not visible. Some registrars offer the option to register a domain name anonymously, recording it in the registrar 's name.
