[ga] whois.txt, ala robots.txt, as a standard ?

[George Kirikos <gkirikos@yahoo.com>]

Hello,

I was reading through the latest WHOIS task force updates, at:

http://does-not-exist.net/final-report/final-report-feb03-030201v0.html

and a thought came to mind. Just as there is a "robots.txt" standard
for webcrawlers like Google, how about having a whois.txt standard that
folks can optionally use on their websites?

For those who don't want to put in anything beyond the standard WHOIS
output (i.e. for privacy, or to avoid spam), they can leave a blank
whois.txt on their website or omit it entirely. For those who want
"enhanced" contact details, and want to be easily found, they can
supplement what's already in the standard WHOIS.

For instance, they can provide additional contacts, WHOIS in different
languages, contact info for various countries, etc. This can also
assist in the goal of WHOIS accuracy -- in case the registrant is
unable to be reached from their existing WHOIS info, the registrar can
try the info in their (by default) http://www.example.com/whois.txt

Perhaps someone clever can even think of an XML format or something for
this enhanced WHOIS, to allow standard tools (like other WHOIS servers,
such as www.betterwhois.com or www.uwhois.com, etc.) to parse it. Folks
like Alexa, for example, who already supply contact details at:

http://www.alexa.com/data/details?url=icann.org

(type a different URL, to see if that domain's contact info is correct)
can crawl the web to get the contacts automatically, instead of mining
the WHOIS, optionally for those who want to be found easily.

Sincerely,

George Kirikos
http://www.kirikos.com/
--
This message was passed to you via the ga@dnso.org list.
Send mail to majordomo@dnso.org to unsubscribe
("unsubscribe ga" in the body of the message).
Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html