At 8/12/00 11:18 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>Why?? Why is it essential that everyone knows who the Tech Contact for a
>domain name is (especially if no website has been established). The owner
>of a website knows who the DNS is...they are paying them a monthly (or
>quarterly, or yearly) fee.
The technical contact information is intentionally there so that anybody
can look it up and see who is responsible for operating the DNS for a
domain.
For example, if I can't send mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" because of a
poorly configured DNS zone file, I should be able to use whois to find
the person responsible for running the zone and point out the problem to
them.
This is why it is "essential that everyone knows who the Tech Contact for
a domain name is", and it has been standard Internet practice for many
years.
>Isn't there currently a way for the owner to give you limited access?
Yes. The problem was solved years ago with contact handles, which OpenSRS
has not yet implemented. With handles, the domain owner has complete
control over specifying who is the technical contact, by pointing the
technical contact at someone's contact information.
The person who owns that contact information record can then change the
display of it if he wishes. The domain owner has ultimate control,
though, because he can change the tech contact to point to any other
contact information record, including one that displays his own name.
So handles solve two problems: first of all, they allow the domain owner
to either delegate technical contact information to others or not do so,
depending on his wishes. Secondly, they allow people who may be listed as
the technical contact for hundreds of domains to change them all in one
place, without modifying the actual domains.
Handles (with a better interface than the NSI interface, which shouldn't
be difficult) will be a welcome addition, and they are all that is
necessary to solve both problems.
>Maybe it would be possible to find a way to do give out the information
>without attaching it to the domain name record?
No. There is a technical need to know who the tech contact is for a
domain.
It sounds like you have the idea that the purpose of a domain's whois
record is advertising. Although some may try to use it that way, its
intended purpose is instead to ensure smooth operation of the Internet,
which requires that the information be publicly available.
--
Robert L Mathews, Tiger Technologies
