Hello Jay,

But I digress, these fields may not be technically required but for practical purposes are necessary.

Yes - I was just pointing out that the EPP standard is not the issue here (it is merely one of three access methods - the others being port-43 WHOIS, and web based WHOIS), it is about what information should be provided to whom (ie the central question being evaluated by the WHOIS task forces). Registrars are a class of user. A more useful discussion to have is what data should registrars be able to access about domain names for which they are not the registrar-of-record.

Registry Status of a domain can only be found at the Registry level.

As I stated before, I agree that the status (ie whether it is active, on lock etc) of the domain name should be available to all registrars, as well as general Internet users. Ie I am OK with this piece of information being in the category of information available by anonymous access. Once you make this decision - then it is reasonable to request that this information also be available to registrars via the EPP protocol. The combined WHOIS task force 1/2 is considering this question as part of considering the feasibility of tiered access. Regards, Bruce