Re[2]: [ga] VeriSign complains...

["William X. Walsh" <william@userfriendly.com>]

Hello Derek,

Don't jump to this conclusion.

Your conclusion that NSI is a stable and reliable registrar is almost
funny.  They are the only registrar whose lack of security has
resulted in rampant domain name hijacking, even today.

Read my draft letter, it better explains it.

http://www.userfriendly.com/transferletter.html

You talk about possibilities, but not realities.  The reality is that
domain slamming is NOT a problem, and it isn't because registrar have
an overwhelming reason to NOT engage in the practice, they face loss
of accreditation, and their entire business.

A little education can go a long way to your understanding why
Verisign's practices are anticompetitive and wrong.

Read the Tucows transfer policy for an example that provides the
protection you stand for without being anticompetitive.



Thursday, July 19, 2001, 6:32:06 PM, Derek Conant wrote:

> I can support VeriSign's efforts to require its customers to acknowledge
> and approve transfer-away requests.

> There may be a problem with relying on competing Registrars to
> authenticate transfer requests.  First, the current Registrar is
> contractually obligated to the Registrant.  It appears that the current
> Registrar has a responsibility to make certain that its customer is aware
> that a transfer request has been initiated through a competing Registrar.
> You can believe that some Registrants choose established and reliable
> Registrars like NSI for registering domain names.  It may be the case that
> not all Registrars are as established and as reliable as NSI.  It appears
> possible for competing Registrars and their affiliates to cause a real
> problem for Registrants and current Registrars if competing Registrars are
> relied upon for authenticating transfer requests.

> Derek Conant
> DNSGA President and Chairman

> Marc Schneiders wrote:

>> A most interesting story, forwarded to you on the request of WXW.
>>
>> --
>> Marc@Schneiders.ORG
>>
>> Verisign is accusing its competitors of "domain slamming" and
>> inappropriately transferring names from the NSI Registrar to them.
>>
>> http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/168146.html
>>
>> Of course, those of us who have had to deal with NSI over the past
>> years know the depths to which NSI will go when it is backed into a
>> corner, and will tell out and out lies, by making things appear to be
>> vastly different than they are in fact.
>>
>> They are doing this now to justify their unwarranted change in policy
>> for out going transfers which has made it prohibitively difficult to
>> transfer domain names away from NSI.  Their new policy requires a
>> response to an email from them within 72 hours, but they have only 5
>> days to deny the transfer, and they regularly send out these emails
>> late, thus if the person doesn't respond within the first 24 hours,
>> it is quite possible their domain transfer will fail.  Also, they tend
>> to send the bulk of these messages out late on Fridays, which gives
>> people till Monday to respond, provided that NSI didn't wait longer
>> than 2 days to send out the message.
>>
>> Recently I transferred 2 domains of my own from NSI, the last 2 I had
>> with them.  One of the domains I got the message 2 days after the
>> request had been submitted, which meant there was no way I would have
>> had the full 72 hours NSI claims to give you to respond, and the other
>> one I only got after I complained about not receiving one.  It was
>> sent on the FOURTH day after the request, giving less than 24 hours
>> before NSI auto NAK'd the transfer.
>>
>> Tucows adopted an excellent solution to outgoing transfers from their
>> Registration Service Providers.  The admin contact of a domain
>> receives a notice, much like the one NSI sends out (but Tucows sends
>> it out automatically when the transfer messages are actually
>> received) and the owner is given a URL where they can block the
>> transfer.  They are also given one where they can explictly approve
>> the transfer (and which results in Tucows sending an ACK to the
>> registry, speeding up the transfer process for the customer), but they
>> are NOT required to ACK it in order for the transfer to go through.
>> If they do not NAK it the approval is assumed, and the transfer goes
>> through on the fifth day.
>>
>> This is sufficient since under the accreditation agreements the
>> winning registrar was also required to verify the authenticity of the
>> transfer requests.
>>
>> As the article pointed out, every one of the "domain slamming" cases
>> Verisign is using to attacks its fastest growing competitors have been
>> the result of cases where a registrant, who was probably never aware
>> of NSI in the first place, registered their domain through a third
>> party registration provider, who simply switched suppliers to one of
>> these other registrars.  In these cases, that kind of service is what
>> the domain registrant was paying these ISPs/IPPs/RSPs to do for them,
>> to manage their domain registration needs.  These ISPs/IPPs/RSPs moved
>> the domains to registrars that they were switching to as their primary
>> suppliers.  These are perfectly valid transfers, and are certainly not
>> cases of rampant "domain slamming."
>>
>> That so many ISPs/IPPs are abandoning NSI as their registration source
>> is a direct result of NSI's long standing abuse of ISPs/IPPs (who
>> prior to the competitive registrar system were perhaps most
>> responsible for the massive growth in domain registrations while NSI
>> had the monopoly, and brought the VAST majority of business into NSI)
>> and absolute disregard for their needs and their concerns.
>>
>> I find Verisign's charges offensive, but in light of their track
>> record, offensive behavior is what can be expected of them.
>>
>> --
>> Best regards,
>> William X Walsh <william@userfriendly.com>
>> Userfriendly.com Domains
>> The most advanced domain lookup tool on the net
>> DNS Services from $1.65/mo
>>
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-- 
Best regards,
William X Walsh <william@userfriendly.com>
Userfriendly.com Domains
The most advanced domain lookup tool on the net
DNS Services from $1.65/mo

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