Domain name search

[SteveC]

Is it possible to search all domain names, but search on who owns them, or by address? I want .co.uk as well as .com

Cheers!

[GNEP]

you mean a WHOIS search?

[SteveC]

I don't know the domain names, just the registrant's & owner's details...

[GNEP]

Ah. a sort of reverse whois... not sure

[Sasq]

That sort of search is generally blocked from public access.

[Paulr]

Same question occasionally appears over at www.webhostingtalk.com
General feeling is no, that is not possible.

I can kind of understand why - it would be a lot more intensive to perform such a search.
When you are searching for a domain name then it either exists or it doesn't.
Searching registrant information would be searching a "free text" field and that would take bloody ages.

[az]

The real reason is protection of privacy, I guess.

AZ

[Greebe]

It's a conspiracy... same reason why the 5 largest auto dealerships in Indianapolis carrying different mens names are actually owner by one man... he plays games with Joe Public, advertising one against another to bolster sales.

[cjolley]

Originally posted by Paulr
Same question occasionally appears over at www.webhostingtalk.com
General feeling is no, that is not possible.

I can kind of understand why - it would be a lot more intensive to perform such a search.
When you are searching for a domain name then it either exists or it doesn't.
Searching registrant information would be searching a "free text" field and that would take bloody ages.

Actually it's trivial for a modern database to do this.
Here is a sample from a medium size db where we find two distinct names matching a criteria in the middle.
Against a set of 442,547 distinct names split up into 54,913,098 fragments.
Total elapsed time for the search: 37/100 of a second

And this was done on a weak test server in a brute force way.
A DB designed for this particular search running on fast hardware could improve that by an order of magnitude.

So, I think it's just privacy at this point.
Chuck

SQL*Plus: Release 8.1.7.0.0 - Production on Thu May 27 15:01:35 2004

(c) Copyright 2000 Oracle Corporation.  All rights reserved.

SQL> @connect chajol@tax_test
Enter password:
Connected.
[email]chajol@tax.expe[/email]rior>select count(distinct name1)
  2  from tax.accounts;

COUNT(DISTINCTNAME1)
--------------------
              442547

Elapsed: 00:01:72.94

[email]chajol@tax.expe[/email]rior>select count(*)
  2  from tax.accounts a,
  3  tax.name_fragments_tax f
  4* where a.acct_id = f.acct_id;

  COUNT(*)
----------
  54913098

Elapsed: 00:08:50.97

[email]chajol@tax.expe[/email]rior>select distinct a.name1
  2  from tax.accounts a,
  3  tax.name_fragments_tax f
  4  where a.acct_id = f.acct_id
  5*   and f.name_frag like 'OLLEY RE%';

NAME1
--------------------------------------------------
COLLEY MILDRED C TRS
JOLLEY REBECCA NANCE & CHARLES

Elapsed: 00:00:00.37

[email]chajol@tax.expe[/email]rior>

PS COLLEY MILDRED C TRS matched because of a match in the name2 field on "MILDRED C COLLEY REV TRUST" because of the way the name fragments table is filled.

[TnT]

Originally posted by az
The real reason is protection of privacy, I guess.

AZ

I don't think the registration companies are too concerned with privacy seeing how snail mail spam is increased after registering a domain.

[Paulr]

I can't believe it is a privacy issue.
Reason?
Under ICANN rules you HAVE to give full and correct details when you register a .com/.net/.org domain.
There is no such thing as hiding whois information for these domains.

For the privacy heads out there, options are limited:

1. PO BOX - This is fine, needs to be valid
2. False information - Your domain can be taken away from you for supplying false information. It has happened in the past and will happen again.
3. Some companies will allow you to register "by proxy" so the company you register you domain through put their information in the public whois, however they keep yours in file.

Nominet allow whois opt-out for .uk domains, but that is just nominet and it doesn't stretch to the more popular TLD's.

[az]

It's still privacy protection, like reverse phone lookups (these are also forbidden here). Everyone can see your phone number if you're in the book, but not everyone will know who you are if they only have your number. Everyone can see who is the owner of matroxusers.com, but not everyone can see he also owns antporn.com.

AZ

[Wombat]

Reverse phone numbers are illegal in Germany? Weird.

Actually, kinda stupid.

If your name and number is in the phonebook, then reverse lookups are anywhere from easy to absolutely trivial.

Phonebook -> Phonebook on CD (common).

Man, you can even do reverse lookups on google.

[Sasq]

reverse lookups are illegal in Oz too.

And ICANN has your data available, so if your holiding a domain name that you may need to be contacted over, you can be contacted.

Not so I can go, hmm wonder how many pr0n sites Wombat owns... clickity clikity, oh wow, only 37.

[cjolley]

Reverse lookups were illegal in the US.
For all I know, technically they still are.
chuck