Right to Transfer

[John Leslie <john@jlc.net>]

First, a meta-comment:

   The use of the terms "registry" and "registrar" are confusing -- IMHO
unnecessarily confusing. From the draft:
] 
] A REGISTRY comprises the roles and activities involved in the
] administration of a portion of the Domain name space. With respect to 
] the work of IAHC, a registry pertains to a single gTLD and encompasses
] all of the services needed for assignment and maintenance of that TLD
] and its registrations.
]    
] A REGISTRAR is the entity which is authorized to enter and modify a
] registry's data, based on customer contact.

   Most of us have been using the term "registry" to refer to what the
draft calls a REGISTRAR. I shall try to be consistent with the draft
(now that I have perused it carefully enough to find this definition),
but I suggest a BOLD-FACE warning at the beginning of the document if
the January draft continues this usage.

Karl Auerbach wrote:
> 
> http://www.cavebear.com/iahc-comments.html
] 
] <<**Topics not mentioned in this document:
]   * The document fails to discuss the rights of the name holder
]     (registrant) to move a name from one registry to another. This
]     will become important when ".com" is subject to registrations from
]     multiple registries and a name holder wants to move to another
]     registry.

   I quite agree with Karl -- the right to transfer to another registrar
needs to be described here.

   No doubt this right seems obvious, and you can't imagine how CORE
would make regulations to diminish it.

   However, CORE (as constituted in this draft) _will_ be dominated by
the registrars, simply because they will be able to devote full-time
personnel to its operation, and these full-time people will find ways to
make their employment more secure.

   In particular, I'd be amazed if CORE didn't make a regulation to the
effect that no SLD could be transferred before paying any outstanding
charges to the current registrar -- charges which are _very_ likely to
be in dispute.

   The right to transfer to another registrar should be stated explicitly
and should not be conditional on payment of any amount in dispute. The
difficult question here is how a customer exercises this right.

   I have seen proposals calling for PGP-signed documents to be decoded
with a key maintained by the registry. NSI has been trying this, and
failing to make it work for even the most savvy of users. This _won't_
work for the average Joe.

   May I suggest that the right to transfer _should_ be conditioned on
finding another registrar which wants to serve the customer?

   If there is a new registrar that wants to take the customer and the
old registrar agrees, there is no problem. If the old registrar disagrees
we have a dispute between registrars -- which IMHO is the only kind of
dispute which should come to the registry itself or to CORE.

   The draft should state that the wishes of the customer, if expressed
clearly enough, will prevail in this kind of dispute. The draft may or
may not state what will be evidence of the customer's wishes. If this
sort of dispute goes to arbitration, I strongly urge that the arbiter
be instructed to assess the costs to the losing side.

--
John Leslie <john@jlc.net>