Does anyone know how to search the history of the ownership of a domain name?

[Fuzz]

I've found some places that charge, would like to know if there is someplace to do that online for free.

Thanks in advance.

[ColbertWatcher]

1. WHOIS.com

Specifically http://whois.domaintools.com/

[Fuzz]

2. Yes, but that is limited, doesn't show the entire history of the ownership

at least not that I am aware of.

[ColbertWatcher]

3. What's the domain name? (PM me if you don't want to post in thread). n/t

[Duer 157099]

4. I think I'd be very surprised that such a tool exists

Please post here if it does.

There are (have been) so many registrars over the past decade, one would have to have compiled all the records from all of the registrars and made sure they were checked every single day, since ownership can change so often.

[blogslut]

5. It does exist but it's not free

As mentioned above, domaintools.com.

[Fuzz]

6. Yeah, all I've found is not free.

[Duer 157099]

7. Well, it can't be complete

Lots of registrars have a privacy protect feature that should prevent such tracking.

[blogslut]

8. When I was able to afford the paid version

...it was pretty complete.

Granted, if a registree hides behind a privacy service, that remains hidden. However, many people that add privacy protection do so after having first registered with public WHOIS info. The Domain Tools service catalogs the entire WHOIS history of a domain. If some person initially registered somewebsite.com in 2000 with public WHOIS info, that info can be called up with this service. As well, I could see the WHOIS info for previous owners of dropped and sold domains. That's how I found out that johnmccain.com used to belong to a domain squatter.