Is there a permanent record/history of who owned a domain?

Question

Is there a record (history) of whomever ever owned a domain? Maybe at the top level? Or if someone transfers a domain to a new whois server, is the history never visible? Or is there a record of which whois server had the domain at different points in time?

Answer 1

You can use a service like - [https://securitytrails.com/domain][1] to help you with DNS record history of any domain.

Answer 2

There is no official history.

Only a registry would be able to provide you one if you asked them for one specific domain. They would however probably not do this without very specific reasons, like a subpoena.

if someone transfers a domain to a new whois server, is the history never visible

That is not clear and does not mean anything. You do not transfer domains to new whois server. You may transfer domains from one registrar to another. If you are in gTLD world (you did not even specify the TLD in which you are interested), ICANN mandates all registry and registrar to have a whois server, with same output format. There are no such obligations in the ccTLD world.

Again, the relevant registry has on its records all the life of the domain name (and backups anyway), and the various registrars it may have been to.

Other than that, various companies regularly mine whois data and store it on their side, and are then able to provide reverse queries and history. This is not official, hence not guaranteed to be exhaustive, and certainly not free.

Now if you are speaking about "DNS history" (as another reply seems to hint to), then this is a completely different problem space. Whois and DNS do not mix, they are distinct protocols and tools for distinct features set, even if they come from the same authoritative source, the registry of the corresponding TLD. There are again various companies and entities that record DNS changes during life of domains and/or record all DNS queries done at some points on the Internet (passive monitoring). Except for research purposes, you will again not get a complete and thruthful dataset for free.