I agree partially with William's statement concerning ISPs, web hosts,
designers, who place themselves as admin contact over a client's site. I
also believe it is highly unethical.
As a web host, we have had numerous problems where the previous host or web
designer blocked a transfer to our nameservers and refused to respond to our
email asking for an explanation. This finally requires a signed
authorization letter from the domain owner to resolve the issue.
It is stupid to prevent a client from leaving if they wish to leave.
Especially a bad client.
If a client wants to leave, the best thing to do is allow them to leave
without problems. Many return at a later date if you allow them to leave
without causing them headaches.
If the client does not pay the hosting fees, then change their password and
replace their index page with one that requests they contact the billing
department.
Any hosting company should know that means unpaid debts.
We normally send an email to the losing hosting company to determine if they
have had problems with the client before accepting them as a client. If
they did not pay their previous host, then we do not wish them for a client,
as they will probably do the same thing to us down the road.
If they were headaches to support, we do not need them as clients. We have
refused many orders dues to the client having problems with their previous
host.
However, the solution to the problem being discussed is to give the tech
contact the authority to make changes to the domain record nameservers,
email addresses, etc.
Network Solutions has always allowed the tech contact the ability to make
changes to the domain records nameservers and email addresses.
OpenSRS's policy of having tech contact information and not allowing the
tech contact any authority over the domain name records is stupid. I know
"stupid" is blunt, but it is the best way to describe this policy.
Why have a tech contact if the tech contact can not make technical changes
to the domain records.
If they wish to reserve the tech contact authority to nameserver information
that would be acceptable, as nameservers are normally what the tech contact
needs to change to manage hosting the domain.
As a hosting company, we are constantly upgrading servers. This means that
we need the ability to change the nameserver information on our client
domain records. It looks very unprofessional to be forced to send a client
an email asking them to change the nameserver information for you when you
move them to a different server.
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of William X. Walsh
Sent: Sunday, June 17, 2001 10:05 AM
To: Doug Sisk
Cc: Charles Daminato; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re[2]: Send the password to owner and billing contact
Hello Doug,
Sunday, June 17, 2001, 1:41:38 AM, Doug Sisk wrote:
> This is just an asinine policy!
> All it does is create work for the RSP. It obviously wasn't originally
> intended to work that way - why would you even define an admin contact
> in the api if you were never going to allow RSP's to set it.
The admin contact can be whomever the owner chooses.
However, that person has the authority to completely change, transfer
ownership, cause a deletion, etc.
The role of the admin contact is effectively as the owner of the
domain name. This is a historical role.
I've said for years that any ISP who registers names for clients and
puts themselves down as Admin contact is at a very minimum committing
a very questionable act, and at worst an unethical one, bordering on
illegal when they use their position as admin contact to prevent the
registrant from making a change that they seek to the domain (Such as
switching providers, changing the contacts, changing the nameservers).
If I had a $1 for every domain I've seen held hostage by an
unscrupulous ISP or webhost who made themselves the admin contact for
customer domains, either because they believed they had the right to
because the customer owed them money (which they don't have the right
to do), or for some other imagined reason.....
I really see no reason why the registrant should not be listed as the
admin contact 100% of the time. For their own protection. Managing a
domain name, especially an OpenSRS registered domain, is simple
enough.
On that note, one thing I've been thinking about is adding context
sensitive help links to the various portions of the same OpenSRS
client interface. (You know, the little "?" links that pop-up a help
window)
Anyone interested in helping to come up with the text for the various
sections?
--
Best regards,
William X Walsh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Userfriendly.com Domains
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