Domain Name Format:
A domain name is a random composition of case insensitive English letters, numbers and the hyphen. The string can not exceed 67 characters in length. The hyphen ('-') can not appear at the beginning or the end of the character string. For example, 'eat-at-joes.com' is a valid domain name, '-eatatjoes.com' is not.

A Note About WHOIS:
With the new shared registration system model, the nature of the WHOIS server has changed. Traditionally, the InterNIC maintained the WHOIS server for .com, .net and .org domain names, and a single query returned full whois data including registrant, administrative contact, billing contact, technical contact, and nameserver information. Under the new system, the registry WHOIS simply contains information on which Registrar is authoritative for a given domain.