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

["Michele Neylon :: Blacknight" <michele@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 23 Sep 2009, at 16:45, Rob Hall wrote:

> Michelle,
>
> Can I ask a dumb question ?  Where do you think Registrants are  
> going to
> do their whois lookups if not Registrars ?  And more specifically the
> Registrar of record ?

They can look them up via several semi-independent sites such as 
domaintools.com 
  or who.is

To be perfectly honest neither of us  have any way of knowing how they  
are going to check them, but assuming that they'll go the "registrar  
of record" is a dangerous assumption


>
> I did a lookup of namescout.com on godaddy.com, and sure enough, they
> showed the Registrar whois, with a link to the Registry whois if you
> need it.  That is a perfect way to do it.   I think most Registrars  
> show
> the Registrar whois, not the Registry whois.
>
> But I am not sure any of this is really relevant.  I think we all
> understand how whois works.

Whether we do or not isn't at issue.

We work in this industry fulltime, so it would only be reasonable that  
we'd have a better understanding of how it all works.

To give you a silly analogy ...

I'd expect a mechanic to know how to strip down an engine, but I'd  
expect the manufacturer to produce a car where a non-technical driver  
(ie. me) can add water to the wipers without needing a PhD.

>
> The question is, is there a better solution to the epiry date  
> issue.  I
> don't know of one, but if someone has one I would love to consider it.

Have a look at my previous reply

I wasn't talking specifically about dates - I was talking about statuses

What that means to my mind is providing an end user with a clear  
indication of what the real status of the domain was. Unfortunately  
with thin registries the whois display format isn't exactly uniform.

Checking a domain for one of our clients for example:

Domain Name: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.COM
    Registrar: ENOM, INC.
    Whois Server: whois.enom.com
    Referral URL: http://www.enom.com
    Name Server: DNS1.NAME-SERVICES.COM
    Name Server: DNS2.NAME-SERVICES.COM
    Name Server: DNS3.NAME-SERVICES.COM
    Name Server: DNS4.NAME-SERVICES.COM
    Name Server: DNS5.NAME-SERVICES.COM
    Status: clientTransferProhibited
    Updated Date: 05-sep-2009
    Creation Date: 04-sep-2008
    Expiration Date: 04-sep-2010

The final line "Expiration Date: 04-sep-2010" would suggest that the  
domain is still active, whereas you'd need to look at the full whois  
to spot the line:

"Creation date: 04 Sep 2008 14:29:12
Expiration date: 04 Sep 2009 14:29:12"

and the status isn't particularly clear either:

"Status: Locked"

(Apologies to Enom, but I needed an example to work with)

The status on a .org I picked at random is clearer:

"Domain ID:D128912353-LROR
Domain Name:xxxxxxxxxxxx.ORG
Created On:14-Sep-2006 16:23:38 UTC
Last Updated On:15-Sep-2009 13:46:21 UTC
Expiration Date:14-Sep-2010 16:23:38 UTC
Sponsoring Registrar:eNom, Inc. (R39-LROR)
Status:OK
Status:AUTORENEWPERIOD"

Regards

Michele


Mr Michele Neylon
Blacknight Solutions
Hosting & Colocation, Brand Protection
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