The problem you describe below is a consequence of NSI's 'thin registry' model, under which each registrar runs its own whois. It was not created by ICANN. ICANN's Registrar Accreditation Agreement contains a provision (Section III.D.4) intended to facilitate its solution by requiring all registrars to contribute the appropriate data for a regitry-wide whois service upon request. Ron Bennett wrote: >Correct tits.com as listed at NSI is a contact record. > >On a related topic, in researching the TITS.COM domain name cheating issue it >appears that the Whois we're all used to is being split by registry. While that >may make sense to ICANN, that's going to cause much problems for the average >folk looking up the owner/contacts for a domain name record. It also could be a >precursor of a larger unintentional split within the DNS system if ICANN isn't >careful and upsets people. > >Right now if one wants to look up the owner of EXAMPLE.COM, one simply goes to >NSI's Whois and enter EXAMPLE.COM and the domain information is displayed. > >As more registars come on-line, things won't be as simple. Say a person inputs >lets say XYZ.COM registered at Register.com in NSI's Whois...it will say the >domain name is not available or display nothing or error out...none of these >results will help the person find the owner/contact information for the domain. > >In essance people will now have to perform two steps to look up a domain: > >1. Determine the registrar at nsiregistry.com >2. Query the appropriate Whois server > >First off many people won't understand this and secondly each registrar may >display different amounts of information on domains or simple none at all. >Hopefully others see the problem with such a setup!? > >Also these differences only reiterate that under the current incarnation of the >multiple registrar system, there exists an accountability/legal problem in >determining who owns and controls a domain. This is not a trivial matter and I >would strongly recommend ICANN review how registrar information is coordinated. > >The central registry (nsiregistry) *should* in my view contain ALL the records >for a domain record or at the minimum the legal OWNER of each domain and date >of registration that can be easily queried. Considering the value of domain >names, why would ICANN create a system where there's no central registry of >domain name owners?? That's crazy!! Or perhaps I misunderstand?...I hope! > >Ron Bennett > >
