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So, I was mulling over WLS some more lately, and something new occured to me about a trend that I personally have been leery of. People in the past have expressed concern that some registrars/resellers may occassionally be "poisoned" by having a name registered with their service that is "too good". They might see it... fold up shop, and keep the name for themselves. --Or so the fear goes. I'm not too concerned about that, because I'm still under the possible delusion that the ICANN Accreditted registrars I deal with have some measure of accountability.
A thought occured to be however that falls outside of any "accountability" assumption. More and more, registrars are beginning to offer "Privacy Guard" type services, that profess "protection" of private information from prying eyes that may read this data from the Whois on your name. The services (most notably GoDaddy's) in effect has a registrant transfer ownership of a name to the registrar (alarm bells), and the registrar then keeps a binding contract that they will transfer ownership back upon request. Hm.
Recently GoDaddy's service was in the news, as someone was having an abominable time getting control of their name back. Apparently the person with all the correct contact information was no longer with the organization, and GoDaddy wasn't acknowledging the company's right to the name. This situation was apparently straightened out from what I gathered, but I thought about it some more.
What happens when the name expires?
What if the name is substantially valuable?
What if the registrar is about to "delete" the name due to non-renewal, and realizes a very salient point... the name is actually THEIRS. They could sell it if they wanted... Why delete it when they are the legal registrants of the name? No, really... Why?
If you are researching a name, and find it is using a "privacy guard" type service, and appears owned by the registrar... what might you expect as that name heads into expiration?
Recently eNom has begun to roll-out a similar service. As WLS goes into effect, and more people begin to recieve random phone calls from people hunting names... will more of them turn to whois privacy services as a default? Will more registrars be put into an interesting position of having a growing cache of names that never need be deleted?
It's a concern I think.
Added to that, if "stolen", how do you cut through the crap if the registrar becomes "clueless" about it? People say Network Solutions was bad, but they were clearly an easy target as the only game in town for so long. With many other registrars on the scene now, customer service problems abound, but few escalate to the level of significant public embarrassment (and therefore "public attention").
Using privacy guard type services, you will certainly have to get over the hurdle of proving you owned it first. Dialog's who-Was service will be of little value to you at that point.
~ Nexus
A thought occured to be however that falls outside of any "accountability" assumption. More and more, registrars are beginning to offer "Privacy Guard" type services, that profess "protection" of private information from prying eyes that may read this data from the Whois on your name. The services (most notably GoDaddy's) in effect has a registrant transfer ownership of a name to the registrar (alarm bells), and the registrar then keeps a binding contract that they will transfer ownership back upon request. Hm.
Recently GoDaddy's service was in the news, as someone was having an abominable time getting control of their name back. Apparently the person with all the correct contact information was no longer with the organization, and GoDaddy wasn't acknowledging the company's right to the name. This situation was apparently straightened out from what I gathered, but I thought about it some more.
What happens when the name expires?
What if the name is substantially valuable?
What if the registrar is about to "delete" the name due to non-renewal, and realizes a very salient point... the name is actually THEIRS. They could sell it if they wanted... Why delete it when they are the legal registrants of the name? No, really... Why?
If you are researching a name, and find it is using a "privacy guard" type service, and appears owned by the registrar... what might you expect as that name heads into expiration?
Recently eNom has begun to roll-out a similar service. As WLS goes into effect, and more people begin to recieve random phone calls from people hunting names... will more of them turn to whois privacy services as a default? Will more registrars be put into an interesting position of having a growing cache of names that never need be deleted?
It's a concern I think.
Added to that, if "stolen", how do you cut through the crap if the registrar becomes "clueless" about it? People say Network Solutions was bad, but they were clearly an easy target as the only game in town for so long. With many other registrars on the scene now, customer service problems abound, but few escalate to the level of significant public embarrassment (and therefore "public attention").
Using privacy guard type services, you will certainly have to get over the hurdle of proving you owned it first. Dialog's who-Was service will be of little value to you at that point.
~ Nexus