[council] .com/.net/.org Whois Committee Makes Recommendations on Staff Implementation Questions 1 and 2

[Louis Touton <touton@icann.org>]

To the Names Council:

The .com/.net/.org Whois Committee has submitted a response to Questions
1 and 2 of my 1 December 2001 letter to the Committee.  The letter posed
11 questions about implementation of the Whois provisions of the
.com/.net/.org registrar agreements.  Questions 1 and 2 are as follows:

Question 1: Should registrars provide Whois replies in a standard
format? Currently, registrars use a wide variety of formats for Whois
responses. If a standard format were employed, it would simplify the
efforts of registrars to provide a seamless, TLD-wide,
domain-name-lookup capability. While this would not satisfy the
long-delayed goal of restoring full TLD-wide Whois service, it would at
least ameliorate the delay in achieving that goal.

Question 2: If a standard format is to be encouraged, what should it be?

The Committee's response is copied below and posted on the ICANN web
site at
<http://www.icann.org/committees/whois/committee-recommendations-06mar01.htm>.

Best regards,

Louis Touton

=======================

Subject:  .com/.net/.org Whois Committee recommendations in response to
ICANN staff questions 1 and 2
   Date:  Tue, 6 Mar 2001 18:34:47 -0500
   From: "Rebecca Nesson" <rnesson@cyber.law.harvard.edu>
     To:  "Louis Touton" <touton@icann.org>
     CC:  <whoiscom@icann.org>

To the ICANN Staff,

The .com/.net/.org Whois Committee offers the following two
recommendations
in response to questions 1 and 2 of the ICANN Staff letter to the
committee.
In addition, we note our support for efforts by the ICANN Supporting
Organizations to examine Whois service more fully.  We expect that
additional recommendations in response to the remainder of the questions
posed by the ICANN Staff will be forthcoming soon.

Thank you,
Rebecca Nesson
Coordinator .com/.net/.org Whois Committee

Recommendation 1

In response to question 1 of Louis Touton's letter to the committee, we
recommend that registrars provide Whois replies in a standard format.

Recommendation 2

In response to question 2 of Louis Touton's letter to the committee, we
recommend phasing in as expeditiously as possible a standard Whois
format
that does not rely on TCP port 43, such as the XML-based format, which
is
described in detail in the Internet draft 'Whois Export and Exchange
Format'
of January 26, 2001.  This standard should be developed in coordination
with
the IETF.