RE: [gnso-pednr-dt] Whois Output from "Thin Registry"

[Ron Wickersham <rjw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 22 Sep 2009, Tim Ruiz wrote:

> My personal opinion:
>
> In reality the actual state of the registration is exactly what is
> displayed in the Registrar AND Registry Whois. At the Registry the Whois
> may correctly reflect that the domain has been auto-renewed for its
> customer (the Registrar). At the Registrar or Reseller the Whois
> correctly reflects that the domain has expired for its customer (the
> Registrant). This is an issue of education more than anything else. The
> Registrant is a customer of the Registrar or Reseller and must rely on
> what the Registrant or Reseller are telling them to understand the true
> state of their domain.
>
> Third party Whois services are impossible to control. Registrants should
> be working with their Registrar or Reseller and they need to be educated
> to that effect. Trying to standardize what Registries do with
> auto-renewal (or not as the case may be) conflicts with free market
> development by restricting what Registries may decide to do to
> differentiate themselves from their competitors. The confusion about
> exipiration dates is due to a lack of understanding about how the system
> works and who the customer actually is for each component part. Again,
> eductation is the key.
>
> Tim
Tim, Alan, and Rob,

yes, autorenew has merits and should not be changed.

but the information provided by whois, while technically accurate, and
operates according to the plan, the confusion is still there, and i don't
believe that education of the registrant is going to ever succeed.

from the registrant's perspective, the Expiration date could be set
100 years in advance, since so long as the domain is eventually renewed,
it will never show Expired on the thin whois.  would it break everytihing
if we asked the registries with auto-renew to simply not publish the
line Expiration Date in the thin whois?

i also agree that wholesale reengineering of the whois system is likely
to be shot down, i still believe that it is within the charter of the
group to examine why confusion and mistakes are made.

using the same term "Expiration Date" for two purposes seems bad.

i'll drop it for now, but if i can come up with a good suggestion for
a trivial solution, i'll share it with the group.

-ron

Ron Wickersham