The new WHOIS Policy is now in effect at the Canadian Internet Registry Authority (CIRA). That means the contact information for individual registrants of .ca domain names is now hidden by default. Registrant information for non-individuals is exposed by default.

For example, as of today, a WHOIS lookup on a personal .ca domain reveals only the Registrar and name servers, in addition to the creation and renewal dates. Yesterday, full information, including home address, phone number and email address was returned.

Back when the policy was announced, the general consensus was that CIRA had thrust itself to a leadership position in the area of WHOIS privacy. The Policy was lauded for the balance it struck between the rights of the Registrant and the rights of the public to access Registrant information.

However, it seems that some aspects of the new Policy, including backdoors for law enforcement and intellectual property owners, have resulted in some of those laurels being swapped out for darts.

As you would expect, Tucows’ OpenSRS domain name system is fully compliant with the new policy.