RE: [registrars] Canceling Renewals?

["Bhavin Turakhia" <bhavin.t@directi.com>]

Hi chuck,

You have brought up very important considerations which have already
been considered :). Please find my comments below

> like there may be alternative ways that registrars themselves 
> could manage this problem.  Let me explain.

This may be true for erroneous renewals but not for fraudulent
registrations - please find below -

> If a registrar does not have confidence that its procedures 
> are not yet solid enough to prevent erroneous extensions or 
> to prevent fraudulent new registrations, then it might be a 
> good idea to simply handle multi-year registrations in this 
> manner: 1) initially register or renew a name for only one 
> year with VGRS; 2) during the first 60 days or so of the 
> new/renewed registration period, perform internal quality 
> checks and apply fraud management techniques; 3) if internal 
> quality checks and fraud investigation yield positive 
> results, then extend the name for multiple years.

There were several registrars who were doing this initially (we were
actually contermplating this ourselves). Infact this was a huge topic of
debate and discussion on the list where registrars were registering a
name and renewing it every year on expiry, instead of registering it for
the entire term from the beginning.

Now however this is not possible any longer since the Verisign registry
displays the expiry date of the domain name for all to see. I know for a
fact that this would create a massive confusion and support headache as
well as customer fights, if we did not register the domain name for the
term that was requested. Most customers have a habit of checking whois
on various websites such as domainwhitepages, or bettwerwhois or even
netsol, which would display a 1 year expiry date and we would have a
large number of irate customers who will then contact us stating they
have paid for 5 years. You will agree that it does not make sense to do
this to all our customers.

Infact taking an extension of what you say however, the ideal solution
would be if the delete period (period during which a refund is given to
a registrar for a new domain/renewal/transfer) was increased to 2
months. In that case we as registrars could avoid 100% of the fraud and
do better business. Now with the introduction of the redemption grace
period we cannot even misuse the same, because if we delete a domain
name, it is not reregisterable for another 30 days. Therefore a 60 day
grace period during which we can delete a name and obtain a refund for
the domain would significantly (or I should say completely) eliminate
fraudulent registrations.

As of now like I mentioned earlier, at the current rate of statistics,
for every fraudulent domain name, we have to register between 120-250
genuine ones to recoup our losses. Since chargeback percentages are
typically between 1-5% no matter what you do, we are always at a loss
making proposition.

I would assume that if your sales channel (us registrars) are making a
loss, that should be a sufficiently strong argument to sell this
internally.
> 
> I may be missing something, but this seems to be a work 
> around that would allow registrars to manage the risk of 
> multi-year registration/renewal mistakes/fraud without 
> requiring significant changes to the SRS.  As registries and 
> registrars, we might even be able to pursue a policy that 
> would specifically provide for a window (e.g., 60 days) 
> during which registrars would not have to register a name 
> with the registry for the full term registered by the 
> registrant provided that after that period the registrar and 
> registry registration periods were synchronized.

This would work, if you would ensure that during this period the expiry
date is not displayed in the registry whois. But that seems to be more
complex than simply allowing a larger grace period to us registrars to
delete a name and obtain a refund. It infact seems to be far lesser
work. Today already you have the policy of giving refunds for a name
deleted within 5 days. All we need is to change that 5 to 60. There is
no way I can think of us registrars misusing it. And it seems to me to
be a tiny amount of system modification (infact no modification if this
is a parameter in a constants file somewhere)


Best Regards
Bhavin Turakhia
Founder, CEO & Chairman
Directi
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Tel: 91-22-26370256 (4 lines)
Fax: 91-22-26370255
http://www.directi.com
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