WHOIS is a protocol which makes it possible to view the information a given domain has been registered with through a command line or using special web-based lookup sites. This information includes the names, address and email address of the owner, admin, tech and billing persons as well as the registrar business the Internet domain has been obtained through, the creation and expiration dates. With the exception of a number of country-code TLDs that have certain limitations, the WHOIS information of any domain name can be modified freely anytime, which is quite vital considering that in line with the policies of the top-level Internet Corporation, ICANN, all details must be current and legitimate at all times. Failing to conform with these policies may result in losing the ownership of an Internet domain and in many cases a domain address might even be deleted from the Domain Name System and released for free registration.