The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) found in the study that almost 5,000 of the 24,418 complaints dealt with domain names containing incorrect or incomplete contact information of known or suspected spammers.
The WHOIS database is a list of registered owners for every top-level domain (TLD) name governed by ICANN -- .com, .net, .org, .biz, .coop, .info, .aero, .museum, .pro, .name and, perhaps later this year, .xxx.
The database contains the contact information of every domain owner on the Internet. The information includes domain name owner, phone number and mailing address of the person in charge of the website.
The 192 ICANN-accredited registrars, the companies who sell the domain names, are under contract to ensure the contact information regarding the domain registration is correct.
For years the WHOIS database has been plagued with inaccuracies, apparently by website owners who are trying to avoid detection. While the registrars automate the forms to get people signed up and on the Internet, there is no automated process to ensure the information is correct.
Federal Trade Commissioner J. Howard Beales III, director of the Bureau Of Consumer Protection, said two years ago that many of the inaccuracies were preventing his agency from stopping illegal operations being conducted through the Internet.
"We cannot easily sue fraudsters if we cannot find them," Beales told a House panel at the time.
What regulators found was that while the owners of fraudulent Internet sites were leaving legitimate emails, contact information that would lead to indictments was being left out.
The WHOIS Data Problem Report System, launched in September 2002, is designed to let users report incorrect domain registration information. The organization received 24,148 confirmed WHOIS inaccuracies, with 16,045 unique domain names listed (8,103 complaints were duplicates) in the following 18 months.
The report stated that 54 percent of the complaints dealt with missing or incorrect mailing addresses and 49 percent had bogus phone numbers. Eighty-two percent of complaints were about incorrect contact info supplied in the .com space, while .net had 13 percent of the complaints.
Last month, ICANN announced its choices for new sponsored TLD applications, among them the long-awaited .xxx domain introduced by Jason Hendeles of Canada-based ICM Registry Inc.
If approved, VeriSign, Register.com and several hundred other competing registrars would act as resellers for the .xxx domains, which according to Hendeles could potentially further legitimize the adult industry globally. Hendeles told XBiz that a decision is expected sometime in August.