Historical Whois

[Name Trader]

Pretty much every registrar has a disclaimer attached to their whois records. GoDaddy is typical and goes like this..

The data contained in GoDaddy.com, Inc.'s WhoIs database,
while believed by the company to be reliable, is provided "as is"
with no guarantee or warranties regarding its accuracy. This
information is provided for the sole purpose of assisting you
in obtaining information about domain name registration records.
Any use of this data for any other purpose is expressly forbidden without the prior written
permission of GoDaddy.com, Inc. By submitting an inquiry,
you agree to these terms of usage and limitations of warranty. In particular,
you agree not to use this data to allow, enable, or otherwise make possible,
dissemination or collection of this data, in part or in its entirety, for any
purpose, such as the transmission of unsolicited advertising and
and solicitations of any kind, including spam. You further agree
not to use this data to enable high volume, automated or robotic electronic
processes designed to collect or compile this data for any purpose,
including mining this data for your own personal or commercial purposes.

Please note: the registrant of the domain name is specified
in the "registrant" field. In most cases, GoDaddy.com, Inc.
is not the registrant of domain names listed in this database.

How does that sit with what DomainTools is doing, collecting and selling historical whois data?

 

[-NC-]

check out the partner logos. its a great big data sharing love-in.
http://xml-api.domaintools.com/

domaintools manages to "satisfy" its "partners", so they let them do what they want.

 

[Name Trader]

I'm not sure what that means. does that mean GoDaddy uses DomainTools for their whois engine?

My question, although specific in example, was more generic in nature.

 

[weblord]

and can you see the price tag? that is indeed satisfying.

$995 per month
$0.007 per search over 142,143

check out the partner logos. its a great big data sharing love-in.
http://xml-api.domaintools.com/

domaintools manages to "satisfy" its "partners", so they let them do what they want.

 

[-NC-]

I'm not sure what that means. does that mean GoDaddy uses DomainTools for their whois engine?

My question, although specific in example, was more generic in nature.

I'm not entirely sure about the full meaning, however I'm fairly sure it means that DomainTools has agreements in place which allow it to compile the data.

 

[Kate]

Simply put domaintools is not complying with the rules.
But as usual who cares - and who is going to enforce the rules. Icann't ? :lol:

 

[weblord]

what op has pointed out are for the general public not necessarily for the domaintools, since gd is in partnership with them. we don't know the details of the partnership.

 

[jberryhill]

My question, although specific in example, was more generic in nature.

Two things:

1. That term relates to automated robotic processes. The way domaintools has collected historical whois information is simply by saving the results of whois searches that have been manually conducted using domaintools. That's not an automated robotic process. The intended language there is directed to things like dictionary-attack data harvesting.

2. If I post a big sign in my yard that says "No walking on my grass", and I tell my friend Jim he can come over and walk on my grass, then you can't stand on the sidewalk pointing at Jim and shouting, "Hey, Jim is violating the rules of John's yard". No, Jim is not violating the rules of my yard, since I get to decide who can and can't walk on my grass.

 

[labrocca]

Ugh...can't believe no one has pointed out something obvious to you. DomainTools probably doesn't even whois to Godaddy. If they were smart they would go direct to the master servers of registries.

 

[jberryhill]

DomainTools probably doesn't even whois to Godaddy. If they were smart they would go direct to the master servers of registries.

The .com registry does not have registrant data, so I don't know what you mean.

 

[Dave_Z]

If I post a big sign in my yard that says "No walking on my grass", and I tell my friend Jim he can come over and walk on my grass, then you can't stand on the sidewalk pointing at Jim and shouting, "Hey, Jim is violating the rules of John's yard". No, Jim is not violating the rules of my yard, since I get to decide who can and can't walk on my grass.

Kinda off-topic, but that reminded me of Moniker included in Silverstein's suit
against e360Insight:

http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t=381012&page=1&pp=25&highlight=moniker+sued

IIRC, Silverstein was trying to hold Moniker accountable for not following their
own agreement towards e360: removing their WHOIS privacy service due to
allegedly violating their anti-spam clause.

And thanks for confirming what I was thinking on DomainTools' ability to save
WHOIS data after retrieving it, John. I was gonna answer the same thing, but
I just wasn't sure.

 

[Name Trader]

Ugh...can't believe no one has pointed out something obvious to you. DomainTools probably doesn't even whois to Godaddy. If they were smart they would go direct to the master servers of registries.

You can get everything you want from the .com register's whois apart from who owns the domain. Probably the most important information on a whois query

1. That term relates to automated robotic processes. The way domaintools has collected historical whois information is simply by saving the results of whois searches that have been manually conducted using domaintools. That's not an automated robotic process. The intended language there is directed to things like dictionary-attack data harvesting.

Doesn't this just about cover everything? Including non-robotic activity? How do 3rd party whois (ie iWhois) still manage to operate successfully?

including mining this data for your own personal or commercial purposes

 

[labrocca]

Interesting...didn't know that. I thought full whois was available at registry.

 

[Kate]

For .com & .net the registrant data is maintained by the registrars. The registry does not have the information.

 

[Dave_Z]

Doesn't this just about cover everything? Including non-robotic activity?

Nope. John already explained how exactly DomainTools' WHOIS history works,
especially since he uses it extensively for his profession.

Whether Go Daddy's, or any registrar's, WHOIS disclaimer or what not should
include non-robotic activity is solely for them to decide. They'd better reword
it if they want to include that as well.