Verisign Launched its WhoWas Product today.
When I first heard about the product it sounded like a DomainTools.com killer.
But now that the product has launched, I think DomainTools.com doesn’t have much to worry about.
Here’s how Verisign’s described the service when it made its request to ICANN for product approval: (pdf)
“VeriSign periodically receives requests for historical domain name registration data, including information on domain name which have been deleted. These requests are made in order to address a wide range of needs, such as a request from registrars who may need for a more complete registration history of a particular domain name or a request related to investigations or legal action related to trademark infringement claims, or other investigations of potential nefarious uses”
“Once a domain name deletion request has been completed, the domain name is removed from the registry Whois service and the Whois data associated with such domain name is no longer publicly available.”
“By implementing the Domain Name WhoWas Service, VeriSign will provide an automated capability for a customer (which may be either a registrar or non-registrar) to look up a domain name and receive a response with the registration history for the entire life of such domain name which will include the domain name, registration dates and registrar of record for each period of time”
Sounded good right, kind of like the information you would expect to find at DomainTools.com for a domain, but at a much lower cost.
Problem is that under the WhoWas product you don’t get prior registrant information.
So although you get to see the registrar, creation date and some other info, you don’t get to see who used to own the domain.
So WhoWas doesn’t tell you WhoWas the owner of the domain.
Here is the VeriSign’s own example of how the product works:
“For example, a request for history of “example.com” would return:”
Domain Name: Example.com
Domain ID: vrsn-123
Registrar: Current Registrar, Inc.
Create Date: 1-jan-2009
ICANN Registry Request Service
Ticket ID: Z5K1I-4P7Z6
Registry Name: VeriSign, Inc,
gTLD: .COM, .NET, .NAME
Status: ICANN Review
Status Date: 2009-07-01 13:53:45
Print Date: 2009-07-01 13:55:15
Expiration Date: 21-dec 2011
Domain Name: Example.com
Domain ID: vrsn-003
Registrar: Xyz registrar, Inc.
Transfer Date: 15-apr-2003
Deletion Date: 17-apr-2006
Domain Name: Example.com
Domain ID: vrsn-003
Registrar: Abc Registrar, Inc.
Create Date: 21-nov-1994
Transfer Date: 15-apr-2003
“This example shows a domain name with two distinct registration periods, indicated by the gap from the deletion date to the next creation date and the change in the Domain ID. The two listings with the same Domain ID show a continuous registration period, with a transfer from Abc Registrar, Inc. to Xyz Registrar, LLC that was executed on April 15, 2003.””
VeriSign offers the Domain Name WhoWas Service under a subscription-based model to both registrars and” non-registrars.”
After an initial trial period, the price per domain search will be $1, that is the wholesale price VeriSign will charge a registrar, what the registrar charges the end user will be up to each registrar who offers the service.
However also unlike DomainTools.com which tells you how many changes there have been before you pay for the service, VeriSign WhoWas won’t tell you ahead of time if there have been any changes. So if you wanted to do a search for Example.com if the domain had only one owner at one registrar since initial registration, it will cost you at least $1 to find that out.
It seems that VeriSign did not have foresight to retain whois information like DomainTools.com did.
In response to a question about the absence of any registrant information a representative from VeriSign confirmed this information would not appear on the WhoWas product:
“We don’t store any contact information as we have a thin whois. However, knowing more information on who the registrar of a domain name would allow you or your customer to contact the appropriate registrar to get relevant information.”
Hum
So you have to pay $1 per domain to find out who the previous registrars of the domain name was?
Then go to the previous registrar and try to get them to give you the registrant of a domain no longer registered with them?
I would love to know the number of man hours that went into this project from concept to approval to implementation and I would love to see the projections that VeriSign had for revenue that would be generated by the project.
This project was first proposed to ICANN over a year ago, in July 2009, so you would have to think some major money was placed behind the product.
My concern is that end users are going to wind up paying for information they think they are going to get.
Personally for me WhoWas should have been named NeverWas.
If verislime has anything to do with it, you can count on a sub par product.
No surprise here.
Yeah, as a thin registry VeriSign doesn’t keep any of the contact information. The registrars have to do that.
Andrew
I mean how many people would pay $1 to find out who the registrar of a domain used to be?
Actually they have to pay $1 even to find out that there may have not been a former registrar.
A domaintoools killer would be Verisign sending them a C&D notice. Apparently it’s illegal to store ….sell domain whois without permission from verisign.
I have zero sympathy for domaintools as they offer no way to remove your full page thumbnails (a dumb comment can be there for eternity) or domain whois. The thumbnails are definitely a copyright issue but who has time to deal with them.
What an absolute joke. How on earth did Verisign not retain this data? They basically controlled the entire space and rootservers for years, and they didn’t save any of the data? How negligent can you be? Mike is right, what a complete lack of foresight.
+1 “WhoWas should have been named NeverWas.”
WHO-WILL-Be.com
BTW… Who will be operating the .COM burned into the new DNS devices ?
Mike, do you have a link to the launched service? I can’t find it on Verisign.com – or was it a press release?
Thanks.
Are you guys sure VeriSign was *allowed* to retain the data from its registrars? I don’t know for sure.
Even if it could, it might not *want* to, because then a bunch of law enforcement would breath down their necks for whois information. Easier to let the registrars deal with it.
But I’ll agree, this service doesn’t have much use, at least to me. Maybe there are other people out there who will get something out of it.
VeriSign referenced the WhoWas service in its proposal to create a domain name exchange program, but it later pulled that proposal.
Acro
The launch was a launch to registrars (that’s how I know about it) not to the general public directly.
Registrars that signed up for the program now have access to it and I assume some will resell this program.
As far as press releases or other info I do not believe there are any at this point.
This is valuable for trademark issues, for legal issues, for old domain owners to find out exactly when / where a domain was moved. Or for someone about to buy a $5,000 domain – this is a potential tool to learn more about the domain name’s history. I can even see it being used for competitive research to figure out more about a competitor’s history. This type of data is not as easily found with precision within DomainTools. DomainTools gives you an idea when things changed, but not definitive dates. I guess we will see if this tool is promoted / used within a few months.
Andrew hit the nail on the head… Verisign never has the Registrant info, that is stored at the Registrar’s layer.
What would be the killer tool for this is if Iron Mountain was to provide such service because they do have all the full info…
WhoIsWhoWas.Com
@ Cartoonz – I suspect Iron Mountain isn’t allowed to do anything with the data other than provide it to ICANN in case of a registrar failure.
Andrew is correct on that point.
Iron Mountain is suppose to be the storage agent in case
something goes wrong (like RegisterFly).
And, the registrars have only been downloading the data
to Iron Mountain for the past 9 to 15 months.
no one should be selling public info that can be gathered easily. (yes, you have to do some learning. but once you know how it’s cake.) i see this often on the internet, not just with domain info, but with many types of info. it’s pathetic. just because a user does not know how to gather info using freely available and openly documented technology does not mean someone should charge them a fee to do it. if they knew how easy it was to do it, they would not pay!
if you think no one is retaining this info about registrants you are being ignorant. and a lot of great info is being shared. i’m often surprised by people’s generousity. the great majority of people gathering info are not trying to sell “subscriptions”. it’s only a few that go that route. domaintools has no shame. they are entitled to use the info for their own benefit. that is enough. there is no need to then sell it.
no doubt they are provoking verisign to try to sell it too. the restriction on usage of the info that appears in the whois data is laughable, but at least verisign was not trying to sell subscriptions itself. someone else had to stoop that low.
as they say, race to the bottom.
I am ready to try it out!
@sellingpublicinfo So how do you get this historical data? I would like to know.
How do I get domaintools to remove my personal info off their whois.domaintools.com ???
How much are you looking to spend? 🙂
“Goncalves admitted that, after moving the domain name, he again waited the mandatory 60 days and listed the name for sale on eBay in September of 2006, where it was purchased for $111,211. The purchaser, a professional basketball player in the NBA, was unaware that the domain name was stolen.”
://njtoday.net/2010/12/13/union-man-pleads-guilty-to-stealing
When it comes to negligence and delivering sub par security, Versign are kings.
They have left the internet community exposed to a serious security risk after having spent hundred’s of millions of dollars…
Ironically, it might just be their WhoWas product that nails them in the end….
And their new owners, Symantec, seem to have the same lacksadaisical philosophy…