Registry Operator's Proposal - TECHNICAL CAPABILITIES AND PLAN

D15.2.8. Publicly accessible look up/Whois service. Address software and hardware, connection speed, search capabilities, coordination with other Whois systems, etc.

Due to Group One Registry being a "fat" whois (where all information relating to the domain is held by the Registry) we are a "one-stop" for WHOIS information. We can also enforce and require Registrants to supply information to us, and therefore the Internet community as a whole, such that confidence in the new TLD can be sustained.

The software will be a customized version of software already in use by a number of ccTLDs that has been supplied by Internet Computer Bureau. The

ICB software prevents the generation of "spam" lists by restricting queries originating from the same IP address. Registrars will have monitored access and to prevent abuse by Registrars we encourage them to use the "IS" service, which determines if a name "is" available or not… which satisfies the primary use by registrars of traditional WHOIS information.

Search capabilities. Unlike traditional TLDs the Group One registry proposal is unlikely to have many Intellectual Property disputes, as the names registered are numerical strings. Thus whilst we propose to provide free access to the WHOIS for searching specifically on the registered domain name to establish it's registered keeper, we consider it is not necessary for us to provide a publicly accessible service over port 43 for searches on other fields such as name of registrant or name of registrar etc, or searches for example, that result in long lists of domains or other whois information. Should that "special" service be required, for example by law enforcement, Group One Registry will be able to provide it following direct consultation with Registry and staff.

With regard to coordinating with other whois services, we propose to work closely with Uwhois.com Inc. The universal service provided by

Uwhois.com has proven a very valuable service to our Accredited Registrar division, Enom Inc, and we propose to extend our relationship further with Uwhois. One of the Uwhois distributed servers is already hosted in a WebVision data center. The Uwhois service interfaces with nearly all other whois services, including ccTLD & gTLD registries, and ICANN accredited registrars. As Paul Kane, Chairman of Internet Computer Bureau is also Chairman of Uwhois.com, we are well placed to utilize the wealth of knowledge contained in those companies to foster stability and confidence in the provision of WHOIS services to the benefit of the whole Internet community.

Having built a number of whois services, for a variety of ICANN accredited registrars, with at least 2 different hardware and software architectures, and having also built a number of whois services for ccTLDs and also the uwhois.com service, we believe we already have the experience, architecture, hardware, software and bandwidth that is required for the .one registry’s whois service.