Unsponsored TLD Agreement: Appendix O (.biz)
(18 June 2003)

NeuLevel will provide RFC954-conformant Whois service. NeuLevel will also provide an enhanced "Whois" service. This Appendix is subject to change by agreement of Registry Operator and ICANN during the design process as well as during the IETF standards process. However, the following provides the target architecture and initial functionality.

RFC954-Conformant Whois

The standard Whois service is intended as a lookup service for registries, registrars, registrants, as well as for other individuals and businesses that wish to query details of domain names or nameservers stored in the registry. Being a fat-registry, the standard Whois service will provide a central location for all authoritative .biz TLD data. Registrars will be able to provide a front-end web interface to the standard Whois service. In addition, the Registry provides its own front-end web interface to allow convenient user access to the Whois service.

Due to the nature of the NeuLevel fat- (thick-)registry model, the RFC954-conformant Whois service will be engineered to handle high transaction load and be integral to the standard suite of registry services. The service will return a single response per domain name or nameserver query. The RFC954-conformant Whois service will conform to established service level agreements.

The RFC954-conformant service provided by the registry will have the following features:

• Standard protocol accessible over port 43.
• Consistent format (fields and formatting) for all registrars.
• Near real-time updates, eliminating "timing" problems when modifying registry information.
• Extensible field capability.

Whois Service Data Elements

The RFC954-conformant service will include the following data elements:

• The name of the domain name registered;
• The IP addresses of the primary nameserver and secondary nameserver(s) of the name registered;
• The corresponding names of those nameservers;
• The identity of the registrar;
• The original creation date and term of the registration;
• The name, postal address, e-mail address, voice telephone number, and (where available) fax number of the domain name registrant;
• The name, postal address, e-mail address, voice telephone number, and (where available) fax number of the technical contact for the name registered; and
• The name, postal address, e-mail address, voice telephone number, and (where available) fax number of the administrative contact for the name registered.

Extensible-Field Capability

NeuLevel will introduce the ability for registrars to use XRP to add customized fields to a record in the registry database. These fields will appear in an "additional information" section of the Whois data. The maximum number of custom fields allowed per record is yet to be determined.

The extensible-field capability will eliminate the need for registrars to store additional information in their own local database, then combine it with the registry Whois information when they present it to end users. The proposed capability will also ensure that end users will view the same information no matter which registrar they use to retrieve Whois data.

Privacy Capability

NeuLevel may introduce the optional ability for registrars to use XRP to associate privacy labels to a record in the registry database. These fields would appear in an "additional information" section of the Whois data. The maximum number of custom fields allowed per record is yet to be determined.

The privacy label capability allows registrars to transmit data with an associated indication of any special disclosure or handling restrictions. This can allow exchange of data among entities involved in the domain-name registration system in a manner that permits consistent adherence to applicable restrictions.

Query Control - Object Type Control

The following keywords restrict a search to specific object type:

Domain: Search only by domain objects. The input string is searched in the Name field.

Contact: Search only contact objects. The input string is searched in the ID field.

Nameserver: Search only by nameserver objects. The input string is searched in the nameserver field or the IP address field.

Registrar: Search only registrar objects. The input string is searched in the Name field.

By default, if no object type control is specified, then the Name field of the Domain object is searched.

Whois Output Fields

Domain Record:

A Whois query that results in domain information will return the following fields from the Domain object and the associated data from host and contact objects. This set of data is also referred to as the Domain Record.

Domain ID
Domain Name
Sponsoring Registrar
Domain Status
Registrant, Administrative, Technical and Billing Contact Information including
   Contact ID
   Contact Name
   Contact Organization
   Contact Address, City, State/Province, Country
   Contact Postal Code
   Contact Phone, Fax, E-mail
Name Servers associated with this domain
Created by Registrar
Last Updated by Registrar
Last Transferred Date
Additional fields (registrar specified)
Domain Registration Date
Domain Expiration Date
Domain Last Updated Date

Note: For domains on PendingDelete Status, the Registry’s front-end web interface will provide an additional explanation of the status as follows:

Nameserver Record:

Nameserver ID
Nameserver name
Currently Associated (true/false)
Nameserver status
IP addresses associated
Sponsoring Registrar
Created by Registrar
Last Updated by Registrar
Last Transferred Date
Additional fields (registrar specified)

Contact Record:

A Whois query that results in contact information will return the following. This set of information is referred to as the Contact Record.

Contact ID
Contact Registrar
Contact Name
Contact Organization
Contact Address, City, State/Province, Country + 3 street fields
Contact Postal Code
Contact Phone, Fax, E-mail
Contact Registration Date
Contact Last Updated Date
Currently Associated
Contact Status
Sponsoring Registrar
Created Registrar
Last Transferred Date

Registrar Record:

A Whois query that results in Registrar information will return the following. This set of information is referred to as the Registrar Record.

Registrar ID (conforming to the IANA registrar-ids registry)
Registrar Name
Registrar Status
Registrar Address, City, State/Province, Country
Registrar Postal Code
Registrar Phone, Fax, E-mail
Registrar Administrative Contacts
Registrar Billing Contacts

Sample Whois Output

This section provides sample output from the Whois server for each type of Registry Object: Domain, Contact, Nameserver, and Registrar. The output is structured as key/value pairs, which simplifies machine-readability.

Domain Record:

Input:

whois "domain = neulevel.biz"

Output:

Domain ID: DOM-1012 Domain Name: NEULEVEL.BIZ Sponsoring Registrar: SAMPLE Domain Status: ACTIVE Registrant Name: JEFFREY J. NEUMAN Registrant Organization: NEULEVEL, INC. Registrant Address: 1120 VERMONT AVE., NW Registrant City: WASHINGTON Registrant State/Province: DC Registrant Country: USA Registrant Postal Code: 20005 Registrant Phone Number: (202) 533-2600 Registrant Facsimile Number: (202) 533-2970 Registrant Email: JEFF.NEUMAN@NEULEVEL.BIZ Admin ID: CNT-1012 Admin Name: JEFFREY J. NEUMAN Admin Organization: NEULEVEL, INC. Admin Address: 1120 VERMONT AVE., NW Admin City: WASHINGTON Admin State/Province: DC Admin Country: USA Admin Postal Code: 20005 Admin Phone Number: (202) 533-2600 Admin Facsimile Number: (202) 533-2970 Admin Email: JEFF.NEUMAN@NEULEVEL.BIZ Tech ID: CNT-1012 Tech Name: JEFFREY J. NEUMAN Tech Organization: NEULEVEL, INC. Tech Address: 1120 VERMONT AVE., NW Tech City: WASHINGTON Tech State/Province: DC Tech Country: USA Tech Postal Code: 20005 Tech Phone Number: (202) 533-2600 Tech Facsimile Number: (202) 533-2970 Tech Email: JEFF.NEUMAN@NEULEVEL.BIZ Billing ID: CNT-1012 Billing Name: JEFFREY J. NEUMAN Billing Organization: NEULEVEL, INC. Billing Address: 1120 VERMONT AVE., NW Billing City: WASHINGTON Billing State/Province: DC Billing Country: USA Billing Postal Code: 20005 Billing Phone Number: (202) 533-2600 Billing Facsimile Number: (202) 533-2970 Billing Email: JEFF.NEUMAN@NEULEVEL.BIZ Name Server: ENTERPRISE.MELBOURNEIT.COM.AU Name Server: DEFIANT.MELBOURNEIT.COM.AU Created On: May 5, 2001 Expires On: May 5, 2003 Updated On: May 5, 2001

Contact Record:

Input:	whois "contact = Jeff Neuman"
Output:	Contact ID: CNT-1012 Registrar: SAMPLE Name: JEFFREY J. NEUMAN Organization: NEULEVEL, INC. Address: 1120 VERMONT AVE, NW City: WASHINGTON State: DC Country: USA Postal Code: 20005 Phone Number: (202) 533-2600 Facsimile Number (202) 533-2970 E-mail: JEFF.NEUMAN@NEULEVEL.BIZ Created On: MAY 5, 2001 Updated On: MAY 5, 2001

Nameserver Record:

Input:	whois "nameserver dns1.neulevel.biz"
Output:	Nameserver ID: HST-9 Nameserver name: dns1.NEULEVEL.BIZ Currently Associated (true/false):T Nameserver status: ACTIVE IP addresses associated: 24.6.0.1 Sponsoring Registrar: SAMPLE Created by Registrar: SAMPLE Last Updated by Registrar: May 5, 2001 Last Transferred Date: May 5, 2001 Additional fields (registrar specified)

Registrar Record:

Input:

whois "registrar SAMPLE"

Output:

Registrar ID: REG-42 Registrar Name: SAMPLE Registrar Status: ACTIVE Registrar Address 1: 424 Fifth Street Registrar Address 2: Registrar City: FARGO Registrar State/Province: ND Registrar Country: USA Registrar Postal Code: 12345 Registrar Phone: (888) 555-1212 Registrar E-mail: jn24601@sample.biz Admin Contact Name: Jean Valjean Admin Contact Phone: (888) 555-1212 Admin Contact E-mail: jn24601@sample.biz Billing Contact Name: Jean Valjean Billing Contact Phone: (888) 555-1212 Billing Contact E-mail: jn24601@sample.biz

Enhanced Whois Service

NeuLevel will also provide a Whois-like directory service intended for intellectual property owners. This service will provide multiple responses to queries and allow sub-string and boolean searches. The registry will provide access to a subset of the enhanced Whois functionality fee exempt, and additional functionality will be provided on a for fee basis.

This service is intentionally separated from the standard Whois service due to the high transaction loads that will be placed on the standard service due to the fat-registry model, and requirement to meet service level agreements. While the RFC954-conformant Whois service will be updated in near real-time, there is no need for the enhanced service to have this requirement due to the nature of it's users. The enhanced service will not be required to conform to service level agreements, so the registry can be more liberal enabling enhanced functionality that places additional load on the enhanced services infrastructure. The maximum update latency of the enhanced service will be 24 hours after updates to the core registry database are received.

The registry will continue consultation with the Intellectual Property Constituency of the DNSO in ICANN and similar interested groups to maximize the utility of the enhanced Whois service. However at a minimum the enhanced service will provide the following functionality:

Functionality exempt from fee:

• Exact-match search on registrant name, returning first 75 matching records.

Functionality incurring fee:

• Exact-match search on domain name.
• Exact-match search on registrant name.
• Sub-string search on domain name.
• Multi-field search involving sub-string searches on both domain name and registrant name fields.
• Boolean searches. For example: ((xxx AND yyy) OR zzz).

Earlier draft:

11 May 2001
26 April 2001