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 registry-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
> >
