Re: [ga] VeriSign May Ditch Domain Deal

["William S. Lovell" <wsl@cerebalaw.com>]

"William X. Walsh" wrote:

>> And I, you. What "results quarterly?" I don't care about stockholders
>> reports
>> (at least at the momen). We're talking about the NSI/Verisign monopoly
>> (or
>> at least a temporary one) on information. How do all other registrars
>> have the
>> same access as you do?

I think Bill is under the mistaken impression that the Registry knows
anything at all about domain registrants, and is assuming that the
reason he gets email from NSI is because of some access they have to
his data that is in the registry.

Your data is not in the registry, Bill.

The registry does not maintain any kind of registrant data whatsoever.

Mebbe so.  Which is why I try to figure out good questions and let
others
(e.g., Robert Gaetano today) who can better answer them (i.e., better
than NSI/Verisign) do so.  I am not a web guru -- all I know is
that when
I run a WHOIS on cerebalaw.com I come up with me (a registrant), the
world knows (and in this case likely little cares) that that domain
name is
registered, and to whom, and I believe that NSI/Verisign has the data
that
permits the WHOIS to function. I understand also that for the DNS to
run
all that is really needed is a "table" of domain names and IP addresses,
and
if that's all that the registry has, then I stand corrected -- in a
sense.  I add
this latter because even if the registry has no "registrant data,"
as you indicate,
I don't see now the DNS could work unless each registered domain name
were in it, and that says it is registered to somebody, and
that is a piece of
information that has commercial value.

And no, that I get SPAM from NSI is not because of that; it is because,
since they're the registry, I have to deal with them in one way or another
in order to hold a domain name, and once I've done that (a) I've become
an NSI "customer" and (b) they have my email address. That is a different
can of worms than the broad information issue and the incompatibility of
registry-registrar functions that I first addressed.

Thanks, "the other William!" (but I go by "Bill").

Bill Lovell