Ballot 224: WHOIS and RDAP

Ballot overview

• Ballot 224: WHOIS and RDAP was a Server Certificate Working Group ballot.
• The ballot passed.
• Purpose: add explicit support for RDAP to the Baseline Requirements by defining WHOIS more broadly and requiring WHOIS information to be retrieved directly from the registrar or registry of the domain name.

What changed

• In section 1.6.1, the Baseline Requirements were amended to add a WHOIS definition covering information retrieved directly from the Domain Name Registrar or registry operator via:
  • RFC 3912 WHOIS protocol
  • RFC 7482 RDAP
  • an HTTPS website
• In section 1.6.3, the Baseline Requirements were amended to add references to:
  • RFC3912, Request for Comments: 3912, WHOIS Protocol Specification, Daigle, September 2004
  • RFC7482, Request for Comments: 7482, Registration Data Access Protocol Query Format, Newton, et al, March 2015

Approval and voting

• Discussion period: 2018-05-03 19:00 UTC to after 2018-05-15 19:00 UTC
• Voting period: 2018-05-15 19:00 UTC to 2018-05-22 19:00 UTC
• Voting results:
  • 22 yes votes from CAs
  • 0 no votes from CAs
  • 0 abstentions from CAs
  • 5 yes votes from browsers
  • 0 no votes from browsers
  • 0 abstentions from browsers
• Quorum was met because half of currently active Members as of the start of voting was 9, so quorum was 10 votes.
• The approval thresholds were met for both CAs and browsers.
• At least one CA Member and one browser Member voted in favor, satisfying the adoption requirement.

Compliance timing

• The supplied evidence does not state any implementation or compliance effective date for the normative change.