Re: [registrars] Deletion of domain name problems

[Mike Lampson <lampson@iaregistry.com>]

Hello all,

I applaud all efforts to fix this situation.  A fully functional and
accessible Registry is in everyone's best interests.  Unfortunately as part
of our company's technical staff, I will not be at any ICANN meetings to add
my voice to any discussions outside of what occurs on the mailing lists.

Most of the discussion so far has been how to fix HOW the "drops" are
implemented.  I haven't seen any discussion on WHY there are these "drops".
Any fix should take into the account the reason for these drops.

"Drops" occur when domains are put on REGISTRY-DELETE-NOTIFY status by the
Registry.  Domains changed to this status are removed from the root zone
files and are scheduled to be batch deleted after a 5 calendar day waiting
period.

Domains are only changed to this status if a Registrar deletes a domain name
outside of the 5 and 45 day grace periods.  The 5 day grace period applies
to new, transferred and explicitly renewed registrations and the 45 day
grace period applies to auto-renewed registrations.

For most Registrars, expired domains never go to REGISTRY-DELETE-NOTIFY
status.  We want to make sure that we don't lose an extra $6 to VeriSign, so
we delete an expired domain name within the 45 day grace period.  When this
occurs, the domain is available IMMEDIATELY for re-registration.  These
names are not part of the "land rush" that occurs at 6:30 Eastern US time.

Now the vast majority of the expiring domains reside in the legacy
Registrar -- Network Solutions -- which as we know is part of VeriSign.  For
reasons unique to Network Solutions, they as a Registrar have decided not to
delete unpaid domains within 45 days of expiration.  Hence the "land rush".

My suggestion is that we eliminate the "land rush" by asking Network
Solutions to play by the rules that the rest of us Registrars are
financially constrained to follow.  If 45 days is not a large enough grace
period for Network Solutions to delete expired domains from their database,
I (personally as I do not speak for the employer) would be willing to
support a request for VeriSign to extend the 45 day grace for all
Registrars.

Just my 2 cents,

Mike Lampson
The Registry at Info Avenue, LLC


----- Original Message -----
From: "Rob Hall" <rob@momentous.ca>
To: "Registrar List" <registrars@verisign-grs.com>
Cc: <Registrars@dnso.org>
Sent: Wednesday, August 08, 2001 11:30 AM
Subject: [registrars] Deletion of domain name problems


It seems to me, as Ross stated, that the problem is caused by the method in
which domains are deleted.

If we move to deleting them throughout the day, this will just make the
problem worse, as multiple connections will be held all day as opposed to
just in the morning hours.

What about moving to a queuing system for deleted domains such as what
.info ran for their landrush.  The entire point of their queues was to deal
with the high volume of initial registration, and this is exactly the same
problem we are seeing with domains being deleted by the registry.

Would it not be possible for the registry to put all deleted domains aside
each day, and allow registrars to queue the domains they wanted and deal
with the assigning of these domains OUTSIDE of the normal RRP
process.  This would get rid of the load on the RRP, and provide a fair way
for registrars to register these deleted domains.

I realize this may take some new system development, but if we can agree to
start down this path, it will solve a problem that is only going to get
much worse.

Rob.



--
Rob Hall                                voice  (613) 768-5100
President                                  fax  (613) 820-0777
Momentous.ca Corp.
rob@momentous.ca                      www.momentous.ca