There have been several postings by (I would assume) US-based list members
making the assertion that a domain is not official unless it appears in
the InterNIC whois database!  Sigh...  If that was the case, then the great
majority of domains in the world are not official.  Please remember that a
large proportion of the Internet exists outside of the USA.  Just for a
start, it does not appear that most if not all subdomains of delegated ccTLDs
are listed.  With the lack of a widely-used whois referral mechanism, national
and regional NICs are not tied back to the InterNIC in an automatic fashion
(I for one would love to see this fixed).

--
Chris Chaundy (Core Engineering Manager)

connect.com.au pty ltd, Level 9, 114 Albert Rd, Sth Melbourne, VIC 3205, Aust.
Internet: chris§connect.com.au   Phone: +61 3 9251-3671   Fax: +61 3 9251-3666