WHOIS is a protocol that makes it easy to view the information a given domain name has been registered with either through a command line or using special web-based lookup sites. This information includes the names, address and e-mail address of the owner, administrator, technical and billing persons along with the registrar organization the domain has been purchased through, the creation and expiration dates. Except for a few country-code TLDs that have specific limitations, the WHOIS details of any Internet domain can be edited freely anytime, which is quite necessary since in accordance with the policies of the top-level Internet Corporation, ICANN, all details have to be current and valid at all times. Failing to comply with these policies could lead to losing the ownership of a domain and in many cases a domain name could even be deleted from the Domain Name System and released for free registration.