WHOIS is a protocol that makes it possible to view the info a given domain name has been registered with either through a command line or by using special web-based lookup sites. This info includes the names, address and email address of the owner, administrator, technical and billing persons in addition to the registrar organization the Internet domain has been acquired through, the creation and expiration dates. Apart from a number of country-code TLDs that have specific limitations, the WHOIS info of any domain address can be modified freely anytime, which is quite necessary considering that based on the policies of the top-level Internet Corporation, ICANN, all details have to be current and legitimate all of the time. Inability to conform with these policies may result in losing the ownership of a domain name and in many cases a domain might even be removed from the Domain Name System and released for free registration.