Mark Jeftovic of easyDNS Technologies Inc. posted an item today on ICANN's "GNSO" registrars' mailing list titled "unsanctioned whois concepts".
In that item he suggests that the control and actual publication of contact information about a domain be put into the zone file itself, a file maintained by the registrant (purchasor) of the domain name.
It turns out that such an idea has been floating around for several years - I have heard the idea credited to Kent Crispin. It is, by my way of thinking, a very good idea.
[Update: I have been informed that Richard Sexton suggested this idea in 1996.]
Take a look at the whois.cavebear.com. TXT resource records in the cavebear.com zone:
dig @cavebear.com. whois.cavebear.com. txt
What you will see is pretty much what Mark is asking for, the contact information for the zone, in a format that is readible by both people and software.
All I had to do was add a couple of TXT records to my zone file - a few seconds effort.
This technique is easily extensible and places the control of, and the responsibility for, the information, squarely in the hands of the person most likely to care and know - the registrant.
Posted by karl at November 3, 2003 10:59 PM