mole said:
Is that in the rules? There may be a lot of irresponsible rouge registrars out there who may not care a hoot to bother to confirm this.
Yes, those are the rules. (But I agree, there are irresponsible registrars out there that do not follow the rules)
http://www.icann.org/transfers/policy-12jul04.htm
1.1 Transfer Authorities
The Administrative Contact and the Registered Name Holder, as listed in
the Losing Registrar's or applicable Registry's (where available) publicly accessible WHOIS service are the only parties that have the authority to approve or deny a transfer request to the Gaining Registrar. In the event of a dispute, the Registered Name Holder's authority supersedes that of the Administrative Contact.
Registrars may use Whois data from either the Registrar of Record or the relevant Registry for the purpose of verifying the authenticity of a transfer request; or from another data source as determined by a consensus policy.
...
2.1.3 In the event that the Gaining Registrar relies on an electronic process to obtain this authorization the acceptable forms of identity would include:
* Electronic signature in conformance with national legislation, in the location of the Gaining Registrar (if such legislation exists).
* Consent from an individual or entity that has an
email address matching the Transfer Contact email address.