Alternatively a far more interesting (but much more difficult to set up) solution would be to use chrome.runtime.connectNative to execute the native whois command on the user's OS.
Alternatively a far more interesting (but much more difficult to set up) solution would be to use chrome.runtime.connectNative to execute the native whois command on the user's OS.
Can you elaborate please? I've taken a very brief look at the chrome.runtime API and didn't see how to.
Essentially you need to add a native messaging app manifest to Chrome to tell it about the app on the host, and then Chrome reads that JSON file to find where to execute it, what to use to talk to it (eg stdio), what it's called, etc. On Windows the location of the JSON file has to be added to the registry (which is prohibitively annoying), but on OSX and Linux it's just saved in a specific folder. Once you've done that it's a simple case of calling a method on the chrome.runtime object, or setting up a couple of listeners to actually make the call.
Or for a moderately amusing confirmation of ICANNs assertion that the current model is broken, try to whois microsoft.com, apple.com or google.com (NSFW language).
I think the current plan is to make whois data mandatory for commercial entities, and abolish the current decentralized model, but AFAIK no work has started yet.
Any negativity conveyed is purely by virtue of the grim state of affairs.
Edit: I just checked your profile and you probably know a lot more about the situation than I do. Feel free to correct me where I'm wrong! Your domain "gtld.club" does not work either, by the way :)