the previous registrants rights are exactly what they were before except IN ADDITION to what they were they will also have the opportunity to realize the benefits from names the do not expire that are currently accruing to, essentially, the pros in the gray market.
I know what I would want from my mom's supplier which, for me, is the ultimate litmus test of it being "unethical" or not. see http://enoss.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2004/9/27/150241.html for much more on this point.
anyone else want to weigh in here?
thanks. nice to see a little heat again :-)
Regards
Robert L Mathews wrote:
James M Woods wrote:
This scenario is the one that gets played out if the previous registrant is
AWOL during the renewal process and has not explicitly asked for the name to
be auctioned.
Gosh, I certainly hope Tucows is not considering such a thing, because such behavior is expressly forbidden by Section 3.7.5 of the Registrar Accreditation Agreement (aka the EDDP), a legally binding contract that Tucows has signed:
"3.7.5 At the conclusion of the registration period, failure by or on behalf of the Registered Name Holder to consent that the registration be renewed within the time specified in a second notice or reminder shall, in the absence of extenuating circumstances, result in cancellation of the registration by the end of the auto-renew grace period (although Registrar may choose to cancel the name earlier).
3.7.5.1 Extenuating circumstances are defined as: UDRP action, valid court order, failure of a Registrar's renewal process (which does not include failure of a registrant to respond), the domain name is used by a nameserver that provides DNS service to third-parties (additional time may be required to migrate the records managed by the nameserver), the registrant is subject to bankruptcy proceedings, payment dispute (where a registrant claims to have paid for a renewal, or a discrepancy in the amount paid), billing dispute (where a registrant disputes the amount on a bill), domain name subject to litigation in a court of competent jurisdiction, or other circumstance as approved specifically by ICANN."
Perhaps my eyes are getting bad in my old age, but I don't see "Tucows didn't hear back from the registrant so they decided to grab it and auction it off" listed as an extenuating circumstance. In fact, it explicitly says that "failure of a registrant to respond" is NOT an extenuating circumstance.
Tucows has no right to auction off a domain name and change the registered name holder unless the registrant gives explicit consent for that. And as I've said before, burying "we have the right to auction off your domain name" eighteen paragraphs deep in Exhibit A does not count as explicit consent. Anyway, Tucows obviously can't insert terms into the end user agreement that conflict with the RAA.
Even if the EDDP didn't require that domain names be deleted when not renewed by the original registrant, other parts of the RAA would still prevent Tucows from changing the registered name holder without the registrant's consent.
I'm not going to bother to further retype the reasons why this would be both unethical and a violation of ICANN policy; they're all in this thread if anyone is interested:
http://www.opensrs.org/archives/discuss-list/0409/0094.html
You know, I honestly can't believe we're still discussing this. What was the internal Tucows discussion after the last time this came up? "Our resellers overwhelmingly think this is a terrible, unethical, possibly illegal idea, but we're going to do it anyway because we can make some money on it?" Tucows should be ashamed that I need to post this message.
I would like to hear Elliot say (on this list) that Tucows will not auction any domain name and change the registered name holder unless the registrant gives explicit consent for Tucows to do so.
-- Elliot Noss Tucows Inc. 416-538-5494
