ICANN wants to kill off WHOIS
An ICANN working group wants to replace the current WHOIS system for retrieving details of domain name registrations.
The Expert Working Group on gTLD Directory Services (EWG) is calling for public input on a successor to the current WHOIS system used to retrieve domain name information.
This will mean a radical change from WHOIS as it will help resolve the nearly decade-long deadlock within the ICANN community on how to replace the current WHOIS system. WHOIS is widely regarded as "broken", a committee spokesperson said. Currently, client software can retrieve database records from a WHOIS server run by a registrar or registry. This lists details such as administrative and technical contact details for the owner of a domain name, name servers and details of the registration and expiry dates of a domain.
