On Wed, Apr 25, 2012 at 07:23:07PM -0300, Omar Kaminski wrote:
Technically speaking is there any need of a new Whois pattern? Or it's a matter of Whois database (and interface) stardardization?
Technically speaking there is a need for encoding abstraction and structure preserving transport format ... like RESTful-Whois using XML. Practically speaking the current text based implementating only needs some best current practices (i.e. a swift to UTF8 encoing and some field naming recommendations like "refer: level-deeper-whois-server"). Lawfully speaking the current storage model violates the many local and international data protection laws and the access to the data violates further local laws. So we have to face a strong move to thinner WHOIS models. Crime fighters are in the opposite situation and would prefer to have all the date stored centrally so that they have easy access to complete data while others might have limited up to no access. So we have to face a strong move to thicker WHOIS models.
From the point of usability all of those issues are irrelevant and need to be hidden behind a Web interface as requested by the original rec 17.