On Nov 20, 2013, at 4:34 PM, Alexander Mayrhofer <alexander.mayrhofer@nic.at> wrote:
The Registry Agreement is quite clear on this, though:
"Registration Data Directory Services. Until ICANN requires a different protocol, Registry Operator will operate a WHOIS service available via port 43 in accordance with RFC 3912, and a web based Directory Service at <whois.nic.TLD> providing free public query based access to at least the following elements in the following format."
Strictly speaking, it hence looks like running the WHOIS service under a different hostname would constitute a violation of the Registry agreement?
The test cases for the WHOIS service in PDT specifically tests port 43 and port 80/443 on whois.nic.TLD as stated in the AGB. What happens after PDT is not under control of the PDT. So it should probably be part of the ICANN SLA monitoring program.