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Network Solutions Overhauls Whois Results
Robert Accettura writes "Network Solutions has updated its whois interface, giving it an interesting new twist. On top of regular info provided, it shows data that appears to be from Alexa, including a screenshot of the homepage (though not terribly recent), as well as looks up your IP, and displays lots of information on it. It even shows the server type, if it supports SSL, DMOZ, Yahoo listing, traffic ranking, and lock status. This comes right after they announced rapid DNS updates. Perhaps they are trying to win over the geeks before they turn on sitefinder?"
I ran a WHOIS query on my domain, kravlor.com, and it was placed in Chicago, IL, as opposed to Minneapolis, MN! Apparently I'm an e-commerce site, whatever that is, too!
You mean to tell me that these guys are SPYING on me??? =P
Lagito ergo expectabo
I assume you're referring to Sitefinder?
Yes, bad ideas happen. However, actively destroying expected behavior of the entire internet is just plain sinister. The only thing they can fall back on is that "technically" they didn't break anything in the sense that wildcards are legitimate.
Mistakes happen, sure. Sitefinder, however, was just malicious profiteering and status abuse.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
whois also "hides" the email address. Netsol puts it out there for everybody to read.
Speaking of spying, I noticed that they finally give you an option of hiding your personal information. My ex-girlfriend always used to say they should just include links to mapquest so that crazy psychos could just print off the map directons, drive to her house and kill her. Bad enough that she's actually gotten CALLS from creepy people.
So at least that's one step in the right direction for Network solutions, even if they're going the wrong direction in so many other instances.
What I want to know is why they did away with having the results be returned as an image. Now my email is availible on that site in text format, leaving me suseptible to spam bots that search sites for email addresses.
I get soooooo much spam because I'm required to have a valid e-mail address in my whois information. Tough tatties, I guess.
I think that this improvement is because Network Solutions charges the most for domain registration and they are trying to provide a better product in order to justify the cost. The added information isn't a major step forward for domain owners, but it does help make Network Solutions seem like a more serious provider.
my blog
They'll impress me when they PUT SOME FUCKING SECURITY ON THE WHOIS SEARCH. Stupid ass companies like Network Solutions are the reason at least 50% of my spam is sent to a DOMAIN REGISTRATION ONLY email address.
Would it be terribly difficult to implement a system like whois.sc, where it shows images of your email address instead of text? I think not. I could probably do it and I'm a pretty green PHP coder.
What I want to know is why they did away with having the results be returned as an image.
Under certain conditions involving government contracts, American companies have to comply with section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, which requires the company's web site to be accessible to people with disabilities. Try retyping a web address from an image if you're blind.
I checked out my domain, which I'm scared to give the name of now and at the top of the page is the following
.net, .org etc ...
Certified Offer Service - Make an offer on this domain
Backorder - Get this name when it becomes available
Similar Names - See suggested alternatives for
this domain
In addition a sidebar has all the other
tld
Excuse me? I don't mind getting legitimate offers to purchased this domain but they seem to be offering services to encourage squatters to either steal it (when the registration expires)
or to grab similar sounding names so they can profit off typos? Whose brilliant idea was this?
Yes, it was. Someone high in the ranks was fired for it too. To date, it is the only system from Nintendo I can think of that just bombed.
The real point of this is to get people to go to the site, realize all the crap they are starting to publicly offer to spammers about you, and force everyone to purchase private registration.
Yup. I found the same. And since our site runs on Linux on a case-sensitive file system, it doesn't work.
Maybe we need to tell verisign that "domain name" is not the same as "URL" and are defined in completely different technical specifications.
("domain name" is case-insensitive, but the path of a URL is most definitely not. And it's not even as if the majority of web servers are running on Windows, luckily, so that can't be the reason for the error)
- Erwin