Re: [ga] another twist on whois (long)

["kidsearch" <kidsearch@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Good case to bring up Dena. ICANN is so intent on making sure registries and 
registrars make money that they are not prone to have any protection in 
place for consumers. People here say it's not ICANN's job. Then who's job is 
it? You cannot rely on existing laws because the Internet traverses 
virtually every country in the world all with different laws. Governements 
cannot make the rules on this because the rules they make would only apply 
to it's own citizens. The rules have to be made by an International 
organization that has something to do with controlling the DNS and domain 
names in general. Wait . . . We have one that is involved in that . . . 
ICANN.

They have the power to demand consumer protection be included in all 
registry agreements. Wow. That could help a lot. Of course the registries 
won't want ICANN to do that. They make a lot of money from domain tasting, 
consumer fraud, and other practices. They want no regulation whatsoever. And 
of course ICANN makes money off of all the same practices so not thinking 
they will want to provide consumers a little protection either.

Chris McElroy aka NameCritic
http://www.articlecontentprovider.com

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dena Whitebirch" <shore@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, January 20, 2007 1:55 PM
Subject: [ga] another twist on whois (long)


> This post will likely bring up a ton of interrelated issues that although 
> I tried, I couldn't figure how to separate for discussion purposes.  I 
> guess it's a bit like the internet...one thing connects to the rest.
>
> First, I wanted to mention that having watched the recent 'whois thread' 
> here I actually revised my thinking a bit since my initial post.   I was 
> also glad to see something resembling a consensus among the final posts 
> which reminded me that consumer protection and 'technical coordination' 
> are entirely different things.
>
> Next, having made the above realization, I ran into a new scenario with a 
> client who is in Canada, a 'domain registrar' outside North America and a 
> domain reseller in the U.S.
>
> I'll detail the scenario in the following few paragraphs, but now 
> consider:  If consumer protection is not within the scope of ICANN, how 
> appropriate is it for this list as a discussion topic?  Are we here to 
> 'help' the internet as a whole, or merely as a sounding board to 
> ourselves, or as a tool for ICANN...or is it something else?
>
> As you ponder those questions you'll probably see how I arrived at those 
> questions from the following story:
>
> A client of mine 'registered' her domain 2 years ago...or thought she did. 
> She'd meant to go renew her domain on her expiration day just a couple of 
> days ago.  She'd 'registered' (supposedly) her domain with a very large 
> and well known company that at least personally I have heard nothing bad 
> about.  Rather than being an ICANN accredited registrar however the 
> company she used is reselling for an ICANN accredited registrar in Asia.
>
> She went on her renewal date to renew her domain registration and 
> couldn't.  She wrote for support to her reseller and was told she'd never 
> been the registrant of the domain and that it was indeed available for 
> registration at that moment.  (Indeed she had used the domain for 2 
> years...)  They referred her to a link where she could go register her 
> domain and it was 'available to register' "now".  She was next unable 
> access 'her account' at the reseller for technical reasons to use the link 
> they provided, so she sent a friend to 'register' her domain for her.
>
> Her friend 'registered' her domain for her...or thought she did.  Now the 
> friend has no technical capability to manage the domain either.
>
> Pursuing support further, apparently although my client had 'used' the 
> domain for 2 years, her former 'account' had only allowed her to forward 
> the domain to an IP number, but did not include the capability of changing 
> the nameservers.  (This is not that unsual as there are several large 
> companies that refuse to let anyone other than themselves provide DNS for 
> domains.)
>
> We next ask why the domain was available for someone else to register 'on' 
> the expiration date.
>
> As the scenario unfolded it would appear that what my client had really 
> purchased was 'hosting' with 'the use' of a domain that the company may 
> actually register in their own name, then deletes exactly on the 
> expiration date with no grace period at all.
>
> And as the actual registrar was several time zones ahead of this client 
> the domain was deleted at 'registrar time'.  Now you notice I mentioned 
> the company 'may' register it in their own name.  Yes, I did a whois 
> lookup on the newly 'registered' domain by the friend.  There ~~is no~~ 
> registrant listed on the whois lookup.  Not a proxy, just nothing at all 
> other than admin, billing and tech contacts.  Now the 'friend' is showing 
> as administrative and billing contacts and the original {non] registrant 
> is showing as the tech contact.
>
> Here we have a case where someone actually doesn't know whether or not 
> they are the registrant of a domain (either with or without a visible 
> registrant in whois) although were led to believe so and paid $19.95 for 
> what they believed was a one year domain registration.
>
> What's really bothering me on this one is the support response from the 
> reseller that provided a link to 'register' the domain when in actuality 
> it would appear that 'even now' neither my client nor her friend are the 
> actual registrants of this domain and seem to be entirely unable 
> technically to manage it.  All she wants to do is bring back the website 
> that displayed at this domain name 3 days ago.
>
> Yes, they've tried contacting the real registrar and were referred back to 
> the reseller absolutely.
>
> Whose responsibilty are the representations made by a reseller?
>
> Comments and suggestions welcome ;)
>
> I also do have permission from the [non] registrant and her friend (the 
> new [non] registrant to discuss more specifically if appropriate.
>
> -Dena Whitebirch