WHOIS

WHOIS (pronounced as the phrase "who is") is a service which displays domain owner and host location detail.

Technically, the WHOIS is a query and response protocol that is widely used for querying databases that store the registered users or assignees of an Internet resource, such as a domain name, an IP address block, or an autonomous system, but is also used for a wider range of other information.

The protocol stores and delivers database content in a human-readable format.

The Whois protocol is documented in RFC 3912.