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I have a domain in .name zone registered in Germany. A couple of days ago I received an email, here is the English part of it:

Dear customer (the German text has my name instead of "customer" here),

by the guidelines of the internet administrative organization ICANN we are obliged to verify the correctness of the owner contacts in the registrations of all generic TLD endings. We have to validate your email address as the domain owner.

We would, therefore, like to ask you to confirm the correctness of your contact e-mail address by clicking on the following link:

https: //www. domainvalidierung.de /AStringOfRandomAlphaNumericalCharacters/

In your case this validation is done, inter alia, for the following domain: my-domain.name

If you have additional domains with a generic domain ending with the same email address for the domain owner then these domains will also be automatically validated by the confirmation of the link above.

Important Note: If you do not confirm your email address by 22.09.2018 all new domain registrations using this email address will be disconnected in accordance with the ICANN policies until the email address is confirmed. Such domains remain registered but are no longer accessible. You can activate the domains by clicking the link above at any time. No further data or other personal information is needed for the validation.

Contractual Basis: The validation of the registrant contact of a domain for all generic TLDs is part of the ongoing efforts of ICANN to improve the contact data quality of the domain owner. We are obliged to implement these requirements of ICANN to be able to offer registration services for all generic TLDs such as .COM, .INFO, .BERLIN, .KOELN, .CLUB and .BIZ

I did not start any domain transfer. The email was sent to my email which was used for the domain registration, my real name is used (but I think both could be found in whois entry).

What seems suspicious to me:

  • "www.domainvalidierung.de/" is blank.
  • I have two other domains for which I didn't receive such an email.

Is this "validation" legit? Can I ignore it? Should I ignore it?

ThoriumBR
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Alex.S
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    Why don't you check with the registrar of your domain? – John Doe Sep 10 '18 at 07:42
  • This *type* of e-mail is quite common. Registrars have to check that contact addresses are indeed still valid. Whether this one actually *is* is a different matter. It would make sense for the e-mail to send you to your registrar's domain/site rather than an unrelated domain, but it's difficult to know. You may might to check with your registrar whether it is legitimate or not. – jcaron Sep 10 '18 at 14:51

1 Answers1

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Under ICANN's Whois Data Reminder Policy accredited registrars will revalidate contact information yearly - did you by any chance register this domain on 22/09/2017?

Aside from this, it may be a routine validation to ensure the Whois data is correct or it may be in response to a complaint regarding the current data.

There are a number of ICANN policies which registrars are obliged to follow which would explain this. My only word of caution is to ensure this came from a trusted source.

Doomgoose
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  • Is the policy new? I registered the domain several years ago and this is the first time I received such an email? And I have two another domains (different registrar) for about 10 years now, there was never such an email about them either. – Alex.S Sep 11 '18 at 07:30
  • Maybe it's a dispute over the Whois data that promoted it? Could also potentially be an internal revalidation the company is going through. There are a number of reasons for it but it does not appear to be anything malicious. I'm sure if you reached out to them they could shed some light. – Doomgoose Sep 11 '18 at 12:32
  • I'm waiting for a registrar's response. – Alex.S Sep 11 '18 at 12:37