[registrars] RE: [registrars] PIR’s EPP DOMAIN INFO command change announcement

["Jay Westerdal" <jwesterdal@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Bruce, 
What about the status of a domain? Should this not be publically available? I notice that it is shown in Australian .com.au registry. Do I need to know if your Driver's license is in the valid status? That is assuming I don't need to know if it is expiring tomorrow...

Personally, I think both Status and Expiration Date are valid things to make available to everyone. Your telling me that as the owner of a domain I would have to login at my registrar to check the expiration date on every domain I own? That may be a solution you like, by I prefer if my hosting company and other technical people that service my domain have easy access to this information as well. I think more domains will lapse into expiration if easy access to the status and expiration date are not available.

For privacy I can see people excluding email addresses and phone numbers, but those are already hidden from the domain info command. Only displaying one field, "the Registrar" seems rather strange. We will not even be able to check to see if the domain is "OK" or "Pending-Delete".

While we are on the road of hiding information, Why even show who the current registrar is? If they are not the registrar or don't have the auth-code they should just bug off. :)

Regards,
Jay



-----Original Message-----
From: Bruce Tonkin [mailto:Bruce.Tonkin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Thursday, August 05, 2004 7:08 PM
To: Jay Westerdal; bbeckwith@xxxxxxx; twomey@xxxxxxxxx
Cc: halloran@xxxxxxxxx; registrars@xxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: [registrars] PIR’s EPP DOMAIN INFO command change announcement

Hello Jay,

Actually I support the general changes being considered by PIR.

What is done with the Australian .com.au registry (which uses EPP), is that the <info> command returns full details if:
(a) the request is from the registrar of record for that particular domain name record
Or
(b) the auth-info password is provided

Thus for a transfer-in, a gaining registrar can request the full record provided the registrant has provided the correct auth-info.

I see no reason why the general public needs to know the expiry date of a registrant's domain name licence, any more than you need to know the expiry date of my drivers licence or passport.

With respect to the EPP protocol, a field may be returned empty and still be compliant with the protocol.  It is a policy decision for what content needs to be provided in which field for certain queries.

I don't believe that the proposed change would be non-compliant with EPP, any more than a thin registry model would be non-compliant with EPP.

Right now from a contractual point of view, the information must be supplied in the WHOIS (not necessarily via EPP).
Personally I hope this decision can be reviewed as part of the WHOIS policy development.

Regards,
Bruce




> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-registrars@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
> [mailto:owner-registrars@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jay Westerdal
> Sent: Friday, 6 August 2004 11:44 AM
> To: bbeckwith@xxxxxxx; twomey@xxxxxxxxx
> Cc: halloran@xxxxxxxxx; registrars@xxxxxxxx
> Subject: [registrars] PIR’s EPP DOMAIN INFO command change 
> announcement
> 
> Name Intelligence, Inc.
> 12806 SE 22nd PL · Bellevue, WA 98005
> 
> August 5, 2004
> 
> VIA EMAIL
> 
> Attention: Paul Twomey and Bruce Beckwith Public Interest Registry
> 1775 Wiehle Ave, Suite 102A
> Reston, Virginia 20190
> Phone: +1-703-464-7005
> Facsimile: +1-703-464-7006
> 
> RE: PIR’s EPP DOMAIN INFO command change announcement
> 
> Dear Paul Twomey and Bruce Beckwith,
> 
> Name Intelligence, Inc. has just been made aware that PIR 
> will be modifying its Dot ORG Registry Software to be 
> non-compliant with EPP1.0. They are moving away from full 
> complacence with EPP 1.0’s DOMAIN INFO command. Their 
> announcement is that they will stop providing complete 
> information according to RFC 3732. Their intention is stop 
> showing all information except for Registrar of record. The 
> reason is to make the command thinner and prevent data 
> mining. However NO registrant information is even being 
> returned with this command right now. The “INFO” command is 
> already a thin command that shows very little information. 
> The information that it does show is fields like: Domain 
> Name, Registrar of Record, Domain Status (On-hold, 
> Transfer-prohibited, Registrar-lock), Domain Creation Date, 
> Modification Date, Expiration Date. We need these fields for 
> our domain suggestion software that appears on 
> NetworkSolutions.com, GoDaddy.com, Enom.com, Yahoo, and lots 
> of other registration company’s websites. This software helps 
> millions of people a year to register domain names. PIR’s 
> impact on our business and that of our customers would be 
> overwhelming if their stated changes takes place.
> 
> Even VeriSign which operates a thin Registry would be showing 
> more information then PIR after PIR’s EPP change. PIR limits 
> their whois access more severally then VeriSign does. 
> Therefore gathering Domain Status and expiration date is very 
> complex with PIR. With VeriSign we just query for this using 
> their whois and we get the answer back. We tried this 
> approach with PIR but they banned our IP addresses because 
> they said we requested too many records. I am not sure if 
> that was fair and equal for them to do since we sevice 
> millions of customers a day, but that is the primary reason 
> our company sought accreditation as an ICANN Registrar.  
> Querying via the EPP command instead of whois allows us 
> access to the same information which is critical to the 
> operations of our company. Actually, the info command returns 
> less information then whois. But having got accredited just 
> for EPP domain info command and now using EPP to gather this 
> information we later hear that PIR is going to begin hiding 
> domain’s status and expiration date from the DOMAIN INFO 
> command.  Our business relies on this EPP command to 
> determine the domain’s status and expiration date and we use 
> these values in our suggestion software.
> 
> We formally request that PIR repeal their decision on hiding 
> expiration date and status from the DOMAIN INFO command. And 
> we also formally request that ICANN enforce their contract 
> with PIR and make them stay complaint with EPP 1.0 (RFC3732) 
> for the DOMAIN INFO command.
> 
> PIR has stated several times that they wish to be the model 
> registry, yet this move by them would make them even worse 
> then VeriSign as far as usability. It would degrade the 
> registration process of millions of users annually. 
> Suggestions for available domain names is a service that 
> users rely on and expect in a good registrar. PIR would force 
> our software to be less accurate and possible suggest a .ORG 
> domain that is already registered. And in my option that is a 
> move in the wrong direction for this registry. Helping us 
> help the registrars with registration is where I want to see 
> PIR headed.
> 
> http://www.icann.org/tlds/agreements/org/
> http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc3732.html
> 
> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> 
> 
> Jay Westerdal
> President and CEO Name Intelligence, Inc.
> CC: Dan Holloran, Registrars
> 
>