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.org through thick and thin
22nd April, 2003
Seasoned domain name watchers may have been wondering what has happened to the .org WHOIS system following the transition of the registry operator from Verisign Global Registry Services (VGRS) to Public Interest Registry (PIR) (see: New .org registry reports smooth transition)
Since then many popular WHOIS clients (programs that can be used to access domain name registration details) have not worked correctly for .org. Even if you ask PIR's own WHOIS service, at whois.publicinterestregistry.net, responses for .org domain names seem to be in a strange format looking like an Afilias '.info-style' WHOIS but with the name field containing the cryptic registrant name 'SEE SPONSORING REGISTRAR'. So what's it all about?
Well, it's all part of the migration from VGRS to PIR. VGRS's WHOIS used to provide (and still does, for .com and .net) a very limited form of information reflecting what the registry knew about a given .org domain name. This included the domain name's expiry date but did not include the registrant's details which were held on each separate registrar's system. What the WHOIS clients did was to look up who the registrar was (eg. MelbourneIT, Register.com or whoever), then look up that registrar's system in turn and present the information directly from the registrar.
More details at: http://www.demys.net/news/2003/04/22_org.htm
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