authoritative not responding as authoritative

[Jeremy Kusnetz]

Our DNS servers, one running 8.3.3 and the other running 9.2.1 are unable to
resolve the domain: goemerchant7.com

While my servers are unable to resolve this domain, it seems other server
can resolve it, but they are running older version of bind.

The one anomaly I can see with this domain is their authoritative servers
aren't setting the alterative bit.  So is this some new security feature
with the latest binds?  Is it something I can turn off if it is?  And if I
can, would I want to turn it off?