Here is my process (and reference) for locating who is controlling the registration and renewal of a domain name.
Step1:
lookup domain name with whois:
whois echo.net.au Domain Name: echo.net.au Last Modified: 02-Jul-2016 00:08:55 UTC Status: serverHold (Expired) Status: serverUpdateProhibited (Expired) Registrar Name: TPP Wholesale Pty Ltd Registrant: Echo Publications Pty. Limited Registrant ID: OTHER 004000239 Eligibility Type: Other Registrant Contact ID: HASI1419 Registrant Contact Name: Simon Haslam Registrant Contact Email: Visit whois.ausregistry.com.au for Web based WhoIs Tech Contact ID: C74220-AD Tech Contact Name: Simon Haslam Tech Contact Email: Visit whois.ausregistry.com.au for Web based WhoIs Name Server: lana.ns.cloudflare.com Name Server: gordon.ns.cloudflare.com DNSSEC: unsigned
We see that TPP Wholesale is the Registrar Name. However they wholesale and we need to know who is the person with a wholesale account.
Step2: Looking up TPP wholesale reseller
https://www.tppwholesale.com.au/provider/
We see that the reseller is:
Tropixel
whois tropixel.com.au Domain Name: tropixel.com.au Last Modified: 16-May-2015 13:45:18 UTC Status: ok Registrar Name: TPP Internet Registrant: STOTZ, FLORIAN NDUNGU Registrant ID: ABN 31060221239 Eligibility Type: Sole Trader Registrant Contact ID: TPP142225-R Registrant Contact Name: Florian Stotz Registrant Contact Email: Visit whois.ausregistry.com.au for Web based WhoIs Tech Contact ID: TPP532235-C Tech Contact Name: Florian Stotz Tech Contact Email: Visit whois.ausregistry.com.au for Web based WhoIs Name Server: jim.ns.cloudflare.com Name Server: chin.ns.cloudflare.com DNSSEC: unsigned
How about we google “Florian Stotz”. Aha Linked in page “https://www.linkedin.com/in/florianstotz” We see this person past was using the name “eDesign International”
Trying https://edesign.partnerconsole.net worked!
Step 4: Contact the reseller, etc.
References:
To get the email addresses of the domain name contact use:
http://whois.ausregistry.com.au/whois/whois_local.jsp?tab=0
Make sure the email address of a domain is not the same as the domain itself. Otherwise if the domain has issues, email and alerts that there is an issue will also fail.