[ga] New Thread - Registrar Reform.

["todd glassey" <todd.glassey@worldnet.att.net>]

All-
I am also one of those people that is struggling with moving domains. And I
personally own 50 or 60 of them spread out across a half dozen Registrar's.
With that said, there are several issues that MUST be attended to here with
the operations of the Registrars or it is my belief that lawsuits WILL
ensue...  and that the first candidate's ICANN for setting  this menagerie
up. In fact the ICANN operations model so strongly favors the Registrar that
there is considerable damage that this process allows the Registrar to do to
the client in the process of taking their money.

With that said let me put out there that the whole registrant process is
flawed. ICANN screwed up royally on this one.  The current Registrar
Operations Model under ICANN's watchful eyes does not take into account IP
rights of the customer or the general rights of the customer as the
contractual client of the Registrar. Lets not even get to the Dispute
Resolution Process which is equally flawed.  They  (ICANN) also fail the
privacy issues and that to is a problem, just one that we are not addressing
herein.

The key concept to remember here is that the Registrar is the publication
agent for an "e-Marque", i.e. a domain name and that's it.
 Because of the specific failings listed below, I say that ICANN needs to
see a Surgeon very soon:

    1)    WHOIS is not satisfactory as a statement of who owns what IP. Read
on and you will understand. What WHOIS is about is "who registered the
"Domain Name" or "other Entity/Object" the last time" and the points of
contact to them, and that is all. This is the inherent problem with whois.
The only way to address this might be the stateful addition of a past tense
to WHOIS DB's, creating essentially WHOWAS <some_domain>... and some new
interpretation rules. This is essentially a problem with not ordering a
custom WHOIS from the IETF to run the Internet by.

Oh and the comment that the current WHOIS is totally functional is only
going to be made by people that are technical in nature since anyone that
comes up 50,000 feet and looks at it then will realize that it is not
functional and why. This is what happens when you rely on the IETF and its
Management to build you a global solution... They do at ground level and
never see the forest for the trees. So sad.

Anyway -

    2)    As mentioned above, the current ICANN philosophy makes the
Registrar essentially a Publications Agent for the client and as such the
registrars have several problems with how they operate now.
    o-    Ones that have purchased organizations that also sell domains just
went to war with their customers and that is an unavoidable conflict of
interest. So my claim here is that registrars MUST not own their own  pool
of domains for sale, because by doing this they compete with their customers
and there is no way to provably separate these two activates. As publication
agents, they (the Registrars) retain no inherent claim against the IP they
publish... so the current Registrar must release a Domain upon ***any***
written demand from the domain owner or its care takers.
    o-    There is no inherent right to force the domain owners to pay an
additional two months penalty for switching a domain. This constitutes
essentially ICANN put in place extortion of domain owners and has caused
significant financial damage already. This needs to be changed immediately.
    o-    In addition to the 60 pre-expiry "change lockout periods", the 60
day waiting period to be able to move a domain after it has expired is also
ludicrous.  When I want to move a domain and have a new contractual
relationship with a new Registrar, then damn it I will move that name as its
my IP, and not that of the Registrar.
    o-    There is another issue here and that is that registrars now keep
portions of the registrants moneys for whatever periods of service that the
customer chooses not to stay for. This is also a problem since it means that
you are paying something for nothing and the only one profiting from this is
the registrars. There is no refund for services not rendered currently and
this also is a mistake.

    3)    Further there a  number of domains that I personally own the IP
under that I have intentionally expired. And this does not mean that I am
abandoning them, just that I chose not to reregister them with this
Registrar again.
    o-    It is the Registrar's responsibility to release these domains
immediately.
    o-    The concept that you could "stand in line for a name's
availability" is ludicrous as well. Just because I do not renew a domain
that was filed at one time with a certain registrar does not mean I am
abandoning that specific IP. Just that my relationship on that domain is not
being renewed with that Publications Agent, and that's all it means.
Anything more is a different issue. This is why the incorporation of a
WhoWas concept might make this easier to deal with.

    4)    And finally there is no plan in place from ICANN for what to do
when a Registrar fails and takes their whole customer base down. The victims
being the customers here. So what is the scenario for recovering from
Registrar failure then?

----

Remember Internet-Internauts. The Internet is a bunch of agreements and
treaties not the NSFNet or the previous ARPANet so it is not a Federally
Funded communications system. What needs to happen here is that some
consumer protection needs to be put in place to address the problems with
the current operations models, and in no short order.

Oh ,and placing these issues into the contract between the Consumer and the
Registrar may make it feasible to claim that these issues are part of the
Registrar's Business Models, i.e as part of a contractual structure between
the client and the supplier, but it also doesn't make it right either that
ICANN is not looking out for the individual here.

Todd Glassey


----- Original Message -----
From: "James Love" <james.love@cptech.org>
To: <ga@dnso.org>; "Bret Fausett" <fausett@lextext.com>
Cc: <DannyYounger@cs.com>; <ga@dnso.org>; <jo-uk@rcn.com>; "Cade,Marilyn S -
LGA" <mcade@att.com>
Sent: Tuesday, May 21, 2002 12:45 AM
Subject: Re: [ga] Registrants unrepresented


> I've asked the person who struggled with out transfers to provide some
> details.  In the meantime, this is a note I received yesterday from
someone
> I have known for a long time, outside of the ICANN context.    Jamie
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From:  "XXXXXXXXXXXXX"
> To: "James Love" <love@CPTECH.ORG>
> Sent: Monday, May 20, 2002 4:43 PM
> Subject: Verisign Crooks
> Hi Jamie
>
> What scammers and crooks these guys are.
> I finally divorced myself from these guys a few months ago and
transferrred
> all my domain registrations from them.
> Now then send me a very clever notice telling me that the names are
> expiring, but burying the fact that they are not longer the registration
> agent.
>
> And, the envelope is directed to their "Expiration Department"
>
> Just like AOL is discovering that once a user becomes savvy they leave
AOL,
> Verisign is learning the same thing.
>
>   [snip]
>
> Attached Verisign Domain Name Expiration Notice
> .............
>
>
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