Title: MDI Spam Sheriff (for GravityForms)
Author: Medium Interactive
Published: <strong>August 17, 2026</strong>
Last modified: August 17, 2026

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# MDI Spam Sheriff (for GravityForms)

 By [Medium Interactive](https://profiles.wordpress.org/mediuminteractive/)

[Download](https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/mdi-spam-sheriff-for-gravityforms.1.0.0.zip)

 * [Details](https://wordpress.org/plugins/mdi-spam-sheriff-for-gravityforms/#description)
 * [Reviews](https://wordpress.org/plugins/mdi-spam-sheriff-for-gravityforms/#reviews)
 *  [Installation](https://wordpress.org/plugins/mdi-spam-sheriff-for-gravityforms/#installation)
 * [Development](https://wordpress.org/plugins/mdi-spam-sheriff-for-gravityforms/#developers)

 [Support](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/mdi-spam-sheriff-for-gravityforms/)

## Description

Every Email-type field on every enabled Gravity Forms form is checked on submit:
the domain’s registration date is looked up via RDAP (the free, keyless, standardized
successor to WHOIS). If it’s younger than your configured threshold (default 160
days), the submission is blocked with a configurable message.

If the RDAP lookup itself is inconclusive (timeout, unsupported TLD), the plugin
falls back to a basic MX/A/AAAA record check – if the domain has no mail-capable
DNS at all, it’s blocked; otherwise it’s allowed through rather than blocking on
missing information.

### External services

This plugin performs domain age verification by querying RDAP (Registration Data
Access Protocol) services, the standardized successor to WHOIS.

 1. IANA RDAP Bootstrap Registry
     This plugin fetches a public bootstrap file from 
    IANA to determine which RDAP server is authoritative for a given domain’s TLD. 
    This happens automatically whenever a domain needs to be looked up and no cached
    bootstrap data exists (cached for 7 days). Data sent: none beyond the standard 
    HTTP request to fetch the static file (no user data is sent). Terms of Service:
    https://www.icann.org/en/data-protection/terms-of-service Privacy Policy: https://
    www.icann.org/en/data-protection/privacy-policy
 2. RDAP registry servers (varies by TLD)
     When a user submits an email address, this
    plugin extracts the domain portion and sends it to the RDAP server responsible 
    for that domain’s TLD, in order to retrieve the domain’s registration date and 
    estimate its age. This is used as a fraud/spam signal in form submissions. Data
    sent: only the domain name (e.g. “example.com”) — never the full email address 
    or local part — and only when a domain hasn’t been checked in the last 30 days (
    cached). Service operator: varies by TLD (e.g. Verisign for .com/.net, PIR for .
    org, etc.), as determined by IANA’s bootstrap registry. RDAP operators: https://
    www.iana.org/assignments/rdap-dns/rdap-dns.xhtml, and most operate under registry-
    standard terms similar to Verisign’s: https://www.verisign.com/en_US/domain-names/
    register-domain-name/rdap/index.xhtml

## Installation

 1. Upload the `gf-fuzzy-domain-validation` folder to `/wp-content/plugins/`.
 2. Activate the plugin. Requires Gravity Forms to be installed and active.
 3. Go to Domain Validation > Settings to set your age threshold and
     customize the
    error message.
 4. Check Domain Validation > Logs to see every check (blocked and clean),
     including
    the RDAP lookup status, any connectivity error detail, and the MX fallback result,
    for review.

## Reviews

There are no reviews for this plugin.

## Contributors & Developers

“MDI Spam Sheriff (for GravityForms)” is open source software. The following people
have contributed to this plugin.

Contributors

 *   [ Medium Interactive ](https://profiles.wordpress.org/mediuminteractive/)

[Translate “MDI Spam Sheriff (for GravityForms)” into your language.](https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp-plugins/mdi-spam-sheriff-for-gravityforms)

### Interested in development?

[Browse the code](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/mdi-spam-sheriff-for-gravityforms/),
check out the [SVN repository](https://plugins.svn.wordpress.org/mdi-spam-sheriff-for-gravityforms/),
or subscribe to the [development log](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/log/mdi-spam-sheriff-for-gravityforms/)
by [RSS](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/log/mdi-spam-sheriff-for-gravityforms/?limit=100&mode=stop_on_copy&format=rss).

## Changelog

#### 1.0.0

 * Initial release

## Meta

 *  Version **1.0.0**
 *  Last updated **22 hours ago**
 *  Active installations **Fewer than 10**
 *  WordPress version ** 5.8 or higher **
 *  Tested up to **7.0.4**
 *  PHP version ** 7.4 or higher **
 * Tags
 * [email validation](https://wordpress.org/plugins/tags/email-validation/)[gravity forms](https://wordpress.org/plugins/tags/gravity-forms/)
   [rdap](https://wordpress.org/plugins/tags/rdap/)[security](https://wordpress.org/plugins/tags/security/)
   [spam](https://wordpress.org/plugins/tags/spam/)
 *  [Advanced View](https://wordpress.org/plugins/mdi-spam-sheriff-for-gravityforms/advanced/)

## Ratings

No reviews have been submitted yet.

[Your review](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/mdi-spam-sheriff-for-gravityforms/reviews/#new-post)

[See all reviews](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/mdi-spam-sheriff-for-gravityforms/reviews/)

## Contributors

 *   [ Medium Interactive ](https://profiles.wordpress.org/mediuminteractive/)

## Support

Got something to say? Need help?

 [View support forum](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/mdi-spam-sheriff-for-gravityforms/)