RE: Detecting a non-existent domain

["David Schwartz" <davids () webmaster com>]

> At 3:15 PM -0700 9/23/03, David Schwartz wrote:
> >     How would you do this before? Does an A record for a hostname
> > mean that a
> > host with that name exists? If so, then all *.com 'hosts' now 'exist'. If
> > not, what did you mean by exist before?

> Okay, let's be very specific.  I need to know if a given name has
> either A or MX records which are *not* the same as those provided by
> the a wildcard in the appropriate TLD.

        Okay, but what does that have to do with Verisign? That question would
apply to .museum as well, for example. It also applies equally to
lower-level domain. It's not Verisign's fault that DNS doesn't provide any
'wildcard' flag in its responses.

        If we're going to challenge Verisign, we should be very careful to
precisely phrase our queries so that Verisign has no wiggle room. For
example, I suggest, "If I don't like SiteFinder, don't agree to its terms,
and don't want to use it, or if I can't comply with its terms because my
usage is commercial, how do I avoid it?"

        DS