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Network Solutions Overhauls Whois Results

Posted by timothy on from the now-it-needs-orkut-style-linking dept.

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?"

8 of 243 comments (clear)

  1. Perhaps? by the_mad_poster · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Perhaps they are trying to win over the geeks before they turn on sitefinder?

    Maybe. However, my bet is on friendlifying (hey, I just coined a word!) the service for something far more sinister. This wreaks of targetting manadrones with all sorts of feelgood updates that don't serve that much purpose for real geeks...

    Maybe I'm paranoid, but when you're dealing with a group like this, you can't look at it with too much suspicion.

    --
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  2. Only for NS Hosted Domains by tonyr60 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The info appears against my Network Solutions domains, but not my Tucows ones.

    And in some respects the Tucows approach is better. A Network Solutions query shows all my details directly. Tucows requires a query to input a grahpics based password so it is harder to harvest the info.

  3. Fails when no referrer and User-Agent by TheUncleBob · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Tried testing it out through a proxy that strips the referrer and user-agent fields (no tin-foil hat here ;-) ). Just kept giving me 302 redirects back to the same front page

    Just what we need - a fussy site.

  4. No .us whois lookup by Punchinello · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm a bit disappointed that you cannot perform a whois lookup on .us domains.

    Doesn't Verisign like the .us people? Were they denied access to the data?

    Register.com lets me do a lookup. Perplexing.

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  5. Umm.. by kevcol · · Score: 4, Interesting

    How does the submitter expect the geeks to care when we have a shell to get faster results?

  6. Alexa Violating Copyrights by Goo.cc · · Score: 5, Interesting

    So Alexa is an Amazon company and they are making money by taking screenshots of copyrighted material?

    Maybe everyone who has screenshots of their website in Alexa should file a DMCA complaint Amazon. Seems fair to me since Amazon loves bogus patents.

  7. Doesn't mention the registrar by Animats · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Note what it doesn't mention - the registrar. The real Whois data has the name of and a link to the registrar. This Verisign thing totally hides the registrar. That, presumably, is the point.

    You have to click on "underlying Whois data" to get the registrar info. At least you still can.

    Registrars are going to be annoyed about this.

  8. Interface? by qtp · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Stll looks the same to me:

    localhost:~$ whois slashdot.org
    NOTICE: Access to .ORG WHOIS information is provided to assist persons in determining the contents of a domain name registration record in the PIR registry database. The data in this record is provided by Public Interest Registry for informational purposes only, and PIR does not guarantee its accuracy.

    This service is intended only for query-based access. You agree that you will us

    (snip)

    I don't know about this being intended to court the geeks, as any actual geeks would be rather unlikely to use a web interface to do a whois query.

    --
    Read, L