take screen shots of your websites and whosis!

This all goes into effect tomorrow:  http://www.icann.com/en/announcements/announcement-16oct09-en.htm

May I suggest: everybody take screen shots of your homepages and whosis info!  This is what you do:

• Roll mouse over the time so the date pops up; leave it.
• Press Shift / PrintScreen (upper right hand).
• Open Paint from Strart/Programs/Accessories
• Paste, or Ctrl V, into the new file; save as a jpeg.

Verisign's proposal slipped by the public, with only half a dozen or so legitimate comments!  Thanx for posting, anyone who posted from here!  It's not midnight yet, you can try to comment:  vrsn-btappa-amendment@icann.org and see if it will still post.  You have to respond to the email ICANN sends back.

Bob and them are getting ready to celebrate!

Patrick Mevzek made a fitting observation in his comment:

"There seems to be almost at the same time a desire to put more controls and verifications to registrars operations, as can be learnt from http://www.internetcommerce.org/ICANN_Requests_Internal_Working_Group_to_Address_Cybersquatting citing an email from ICANN COO pointing at some upcoming work on "Cybersquatting: Explicitly tackle the issue of possible cybersquatting by Registrars, suggesting that cybersquatting be considered a violation of the RAA.

"I think this would imply that there may be current problems with registrars and their handling of their own domain names portfolio if I understand the above correctly.  <== understatement!!!

"If this the case, it would seem odd to me to give them even more tools to be able to quickly transfer domain names (through the aforementioned BTAPPA service provided by registry) from one registrar to another, that will make disputes procedures even more complicated."

Interesting that two of the eight replies were spam!

What are the chances that they actually bothered to listen?

Ok. I'll bite. It's written in bureaucracese and tl;dr. What does this mean to us and what are the implications?

Hi, Let me tone down the "crazy lady."  

The sneaks, Verisign and ICANN, slid a policy governing dot coms and dot nets that is already effective for dot biz since 2006:

Terms of Service Agreement for Bulk Transfer After Partial Portfolio Acquisition (BTAPPA) - NeuStar BTAPPA, pdf file

.biz didn't flourish like dot com and dot net, so it is nice to have a provision in place where some registrars can sell partial portfolios and recoup.  dot biz is not such an exploding pinata like dot com and dot nets.

But Verisign got the similar process passed for dot com and dot net, so that Registrars can now buy and sell PARTIAL portfolios from one another.  Registrars can target the most desirable domains based on insider info that Verisign makes no pretense of hiding that it will sell to them:  traffic, popularity of topic, expiration date.

This is not dissolution of a registrar because of it is going-out-of-business transfers, and it is not deaccreditation transfers - that is already handled by Part B of Policy on Transfer of Registrations between Registrars  The BTAPPA has a disclaimer stating that, "BTAPPA may not be requested if the Gaining Registrar's request would otherwise qualify for bulk transfer under Part B of the Policy on Transfer of Registrations Between Registrars implemented by ICANN." - Bullet Point 5 on Page 2 of Verisign's Request for BTAPPA

This process will allow speculation of the WINNING Registrar of domains he is interested in from the Losing Registrar.

Furthermore, the new gTLD Guidebook doesn't set limits on renewal fees for transferred domains!  See Andrew Alleman's article and comments: Latest Top Level Domain Guidebook Allows .Com Prices to Skyrocket

Not to deviate.  The amendment of the process was up for public comment.  The protection to the registrant is that the Losing Registrar, once the deal is agreed upon by Winning and Losing Registrar, has to send notice 15 days in advance that your domain is going to be transferred:

"Losing Registrar must agree to provide at least fifteen (15) day prior written notice of the partial Bulk
Transfer to all registrants associated with domain names involved in the transfer."

Once your domain is transferred, you may transfer away from the Winning Registrar.

If your expiration date falls within 30 days of the transfer, too bad!

"Notice must include: (i) a statement that all Transfers Rules and Policies set by ICANN and the Registry shall remain in effect;"

You're stuck.

So, you see, NoDaddy may come under the sponsorship of Go Daddy after all, with the ability to opt out with 15 days notice, as long as it is not delivered within 30 days of NoDaddy's expiration date, or else NoDaddy cannot opt out, until 60 days after the transfer (that is standard, I believe).

You can read my [paranoid lady's] note to the President here, with all enclosed documents.  It got monolithic to this paranoid mind after I kept searching for protections for the registrant, and didn't find any!

Just, my brother said, if people lose their domains en masse because they get transferred, then the new Registrar raises the renewal fee [no limit] so that the Registrant can't pay it, registrants will make a stink about it, and the law will get changed.

None of my lawsuit or any personal complaints have any significance in bearing with this new policy!  Only ICANNWatch.org published my article. The mainstream press:  NY Times, LA Times, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, ZDNet, and online journals and publications, even Andrew Alleman himself wouldn't take a chance on it, because I am the only one with a suspicious mind concerning ICANN, Verisign, and the big Registrars . . .

Also, Snarkmaster listened and got a comment off - kudos to him!

Louise  

This is beyond terrible. Little wonder it got such little coverage. ICANN's announcement is unreadable. I couldn't work out what was going on.

Did ICANN go forward with the original plan without regard to comments?

It's likely good record-keeping to have on file snaps of your homepage, and whosis info updated annually!  I need to do that anyway.  I haven't started yet.

You people inspired me to investigate this, since I was casually looking up news on ICANN and Go Daddy to post here, and came across the amendment, but now I am fixated. I created this blog to keep an eye on it!

Recover Domain Name .com

Anyone of you, esp. Snarkmaster and Yanis, if you would like to post there, I'll create an account for you!  It has lots of facets, this thing.  But I grew up outside NYC during the "Goodfellas" years, so I have a pessimistic view of the whole thing.  Hopefully I'm wrong, but it will be interesting to watch what goes down in about 2-3 weeks from now!

Louise