WHOIS server. This lets the WHOIS user making the query know that the detailed information resides on the RIPE server. In addition to the RIRs servers, commercial services exist, such as the Routing Assets Database used by some large networks (e.g., large Internet providers that acquired other ISPs in several RIR areas). Server discovery There is currently no widely extended way for determining the responsible WHOIS server for a DNS domain, though a number of methods are in common use for top-level domains (TLDs). Some registries use DNS SRV records (defined in RFC 2782) to allow clients to discover the address of the WHOIS server. Some WHOIS lookups require searching the procuring domain registrar to display domain owner details. Query example Normally the contact information of the resources assignee is returned. However, some registrars offer private registration, in which case the contact information of the registrar is shown instead. Some registry operators are wholesalers, meaning that they typically provide domain name services to a large number of retail registrars, who in turn offer them to consumers. For private registration, only the identity of the wholesale registrar may be returned. In this case, the identity of the individual as well as the retail registrar may be hidden. Below is an example of WHOIS data returned for an individual resource holder. This is the result of a WHOIS query of example.com: whois example.com [Querying whois.verisign-grs.com] [Redirected to whois.iana.org] [Querying whois.iana.org] [whois.iana.org] % IANA WHOIS server % for more information on IANA, visit http://www.iana.org % This query returned 1 object domain: EXAMPLE.COM organisation: Internet Assigned Numbers Authority created: 1992-01-01 source: IANA Referral Whois Referral Whois (RWhois) is an extension of the original Whois protocol and service. RWhois extends the concepts of Whois in a scalable, hierarchical fashion, potentially creating a system with a tree-like architecture. Queries are deterministically routed to servers based on hierarchical labels, reducing a query to the primary repository of information. Lookups of IP address allocations are often limited to the larger Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR) blocks (e.g., /24, /22, /16), because usually only the regional Internet registries (RIRs) and domain registrars run RWhois or Whois servers, although RWhois is intended to be run by even smaller local Internet registries, to provide more granular information about IP address assignment. RWhois is intended to replace Whois, providing an organized hierarchy of referral services where one could connect to any RWhois server,