RE: [atlarge-discuss] RE: Transfer Task Force conference calls

["Bruce Young" <bruce@barelyadequate.info>]

Ross, thanks for sharing this with our list.  My comments to yours follow:

| Law should be
| enforced by the local law enforcement authorities in other words. Keep
| in mind also that these policies don't supercede whatever local laws
| come into play.

I agree with this thinking.  Consumer protection standards vary from state
to state in the US, let alone throwing in the international big picture!
The alternative process would become so cumbersome as to require each
registrar have a full-time Consumer Advocacy office to filter through all
these local requirements.  This would lead to either a unmanageable
multiplicity of internal policies for each locality <shudder!>, or to some
lowest common denominator policy that, when implemented would be sub optimal
in most venues.  Either way, this would be an unacceptable hit on
registrars' bottom lines!  Local rules should be administered and enforced
locally.

| Over here at Tucows,
| we have a growing list of 4000 or so names that are pretty unlikely to
| transfer to us - microsoft.com, yahoo.com etc. If we ever see these
| names trying to move to us, we simply turn on the manual sniffers to
| make sure that everything adds up. The likelihood that the
| new corporate
| address for Yahoo! Corp. would be 123 Some Street, Tierra Del Fuego is
| pretty much nil...

I don't disagree with this in theory.  But how about my barelyadequate.info
and the many other "small fry" out there, for some of whom losing their
domain for even a week could lead to bankruptcy?  I feel we deserve as much
consideration as the big guys.  My point here is that the rules should
require positive contact with the domain holder before snatching away their
domain.  I see two ways to do this:

The first is maintaining a master list that domain holders are required to
update quarterly or semiannually, or upon abandoning a domain.  This list
would indicate their future intent to keep domain name, or not, and
cross-checked automatically when a domain registration is received to
determine the current holder's intent.  Requests where the info doesn't
match up would trigger real-person involvement

Alternatively, this could also be easily automated by sending an e-mail to
the domain holder's e-mail address of record, requesting a reply as to
intent.  The replies could be further automated with two links in the e-mail
to indicate "Yes, I'm keeping it" or "No, sell it".  Hitting a link would
flag the record accordingly.  That would limit real-person involvement to
the few unresponsive accounts.  I know that some registrars are already
doing this.  Mine, for instance, offers free e-mail notification as an
optional service.  I expect this idea is already gaining acceptance as an
industry "best practice," but it should be mandatory none the less, under
the theory that we "plan for the worst and hope for the best!"


I'm sure there are other ways to do this as well.  But the key is an
affirmative effort to determine the will of the domain holder.

| As the Yahoo! example above
| illustrates, policy forcing the Gaining Registrar to do business with
| someone they are not comfortable doing business with is
| probably "a bad
| idea".

Agreed.  "We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone" is a business
prerogative everywhere else.  Your industry deserves the same right.
Particularly when the forced relationship may negatively affect the former
domain holder, and leave the registrar open to legal entanglements!

A possible alternative I can see from my relatively-unenlightened
perspective might be another automated process: maintain a Whois archive
from which previous domain holder info could be harvested.  A domain
registration request would automatically trigger a search of that archive to
see if the domain previous existed.  If not, it goes through.  If so, the
previous domain holder's e-mail address of record would be queried to notify
them of the change, with "Yes/No" options as noted above to indicate if they
approve.  If they respond "yes" or don't respond after a set time limit, the
transfer goes through.   Once again, a "no" response would trigger
real-person involvement.


Bruce Young
Portland, Oregon
bruce@barelyadequate.info
http://www.barelyadequate.info
--------------------------------------------
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