Domain Transfers: New ICANN Transfer Policy

Jay:-“The most important thing to domain registrants this month, the big red flashing alert is the Icann transfer policy.”

Monte:-“Yes. We’ve gotten tons of calls and email, trying to keep people at ease.”

Jay:-“The problem is there was a genuine problem sought to be solved there used to be a single registry. One of the objectives of ICANN and when you’re the only registered and you have the lions share, you want to retain customers and people who have their domain name registered. with this registration, you wanted to move away to some of the more better registrars’ interfaces, better databases, not losing domain names for whatever reason. They wanted to transfer domain names. Some registrars were throwing up impossible barriers to getting your domain name away from them. You have to fill in a form & fax with drivers license. A registrar in Australia required certificate letter to be sent with Notary affidavit and sent registered mail and had to be received within certain time of your domain total NIC and they have been a very royal pain for domainers you can say that but I‘m talking about total NIC. I would sit at my desk and people would call me, you’d be married to them for life, no divorce proposition, because their rules function impossibly. “

Monte:-“So also is a bad long distance relationship unless you lived in Australia.”

Jay:-“Not too many people send their ex-wife $35 a year. I’m sure you have some recommendations. This was a real sticking point registrars weren’t letting them go. ICANN severely limited circumstances under which losing registrar could deny a transfer request. The fundamental problem is the existing registrar is the one with the bus relationship with the customer, they have customer credit card and an imposter can show up at another saying, ‘I’m that person, send me the domain name,’ they really swung the teeter the other direction, a dangerous direction. They pushed it very hard. There are extremely limited circumstances that your registrar can deny an outbound transfer request. One is if that registration has a locking registration against transfer activity by the domain registrar and if that registrar provides access to unlocking domain names then that registrar can say this name is locked by the customer. We’re not letting it out. Default sit may be as simple as if you go away for a week and have a spam filter and have email blocking those notifying you of the transfer of the domain or you’re in hospital for a week and you are left open of this policy swing and with more of a chance of losing the domain.”

Jay:-“The solution and Icann is a lovely organization, the solution to every problem is to institute new and more complex policy. They added a policy that, if a transfer is disputed, then the proof on either side between the two registrars from both sides, is submitted to independent fact finder who decides if it is legitimate. The flaw is domain registrants can’t invoke this policy. Only domain registrars can file a transfer dispute.”

Monte:-“So owner is left out of the process. This is bizarre because the owner is whose name it is left out. If you are transferring between 1 mega-corporation registrar to another mega-corporation registrar you can go to the initial registrar and say no this was transferred away from me and I didn’t consent to it. Please will you commit time and resources to get back this $30 contract, they don’t care. They don’t have to. That’s affectively why I’m itching; I’m chomping at the bit to find out how this policy works. I have seen several, just in last few weeks I’ve approached registrars and said this domain name has been fraudulently taken away. Not only will we do paperwork but we will pay you to start the dispute policy. They aren’t. I’ve seen people lose a few domains. I really don’t know if hijackings are going to increase dramatically. I haven’t seen a tremendous increase, but it can be some time before people realize they have lost there domains. Sometimes hijackers do clever things like keep everything same then move it through about 3 or 4 registrars. Then the people’s sites are working fine and people don’t notice and one day everything’s looking at some website for a fake Nigerian bank site.”

Monte:-“You mean the won I won the lottery for? I told my staff today I won the lottery. I don’t know why I’m still working I must love my company so much.”

Jay:-“Yeah, I don’t even do business with Nigerian widows who have less than 20 million dollars.”