I also believe we should offer choices to the customer and not make things
difficult for them when we can avoid doing so. I am not trying to control
my customers as much as to control my record keeping. I want to know who my
customers are. If there is a possibility that a renewal can occur somewhere
else, I want to know how I will ever find out about it. Will that
customer's domain still be in my RWI, but with a changed expiration date?
Will it move to the renewing RSP's RWI? Clearly the renewing RSP is the one
who will receive the email notice that a renewal occurred.
I have already experienced one transfer of a domain to another registrar - I
received no notice of any kind, and the domain is still listed in my RWI! I
only discovered it by accident, but I'll have to make an extra effort to
avoid sending notices for renewal. My #1 headache is record keeping. We
have expressed a need to download information we can currently only access
via the RWI. So far, we've gotten fewer domains per page, which means a lot
more copying and pasting. Now we are faced with the possibility of
information in the RWI that may not correspond to the transactions we've had
with our customer (expiration dates magically incrementing due to renewals
elsewhere, domain names visible which are no longer registered with
OpenSRS). As more and more domain names are registered, the likelihood of
errors in my records increases. How do I know for sure when a customer is
no longer a customer? How long do I continue providing DNS, hosting, or
email to a customer who has left?
If you think this situation (renewal at a different RSP) is unlikely to
happen, then it isn't a very important feature to have available. I don't
think it will be all that rare. Consider the case of the
customer-turned-RSP. When his domains come up for renewal, naturally he
will want to do them himself. There is nothing inherently wrong with this,
but the original RSP needs to know about it. My personal preference would
be for easy RSP changes (with notification sent to the losing RSP), but no
renewals by any RSP other than the current one. If "open renewals" are
something we have to live with, then I have a couple of requests:
1. Email the "owning" RSP when one of its domains is renewed somewhere else.
2. Don't allow changes to the "auto-renew" flag by any other RSP!
I appreciate your willingness to listen.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Scott Allan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Chuck Hatcher" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, January 03, 2001 12:39 PM
Subject: Re: renewals
At 11:06 PM 1/2/01 -0500, Chuck Hatcher wrote:
>Please accept my vote for this to become an issue.
Accepted.
>I think the only way an RSP other than the one who registered the domain
>name should be able to renew it is if the domain name is transferred to
that
>RSP. (I think there should be an automated process for this that makes it
>at least as easy to change RSP's as it is to change registrars. This is in
>OpenSRS's best interest, because if an end user wants to leave their RSP,
>and it is difficult to move to another OpenSRS RSP, they will find another
>registrar.)
Agreed.
Again, as I think back as to why this approach was taken, it probably had a
lot to do with not having automated RSP to RSP transfers. So, it was
certainly a compromise based on missing functionality. Not a good thing.
While I have no problem adding in the restriction, I think it might be best
to wait until RSP to RSP transfers are automated, which is near the top of
list of things we are to work on next. Fair?
Personally, I do not see the *real* threat in keeping this open,
realistically no one would sanely attack this market. The advantages the
"sponsoring" RSP has blow this right off the concern meter of real issues
for me personally (although I do realize many of you are concerned, and I
respect that). In my mind, I do appreciate (if I think as an RSP) that
there seems to be little value in this open-ness, and there is a perceived
threat, but I can not (as an individual RSP) bring myself to be worried
about it - if my customers are that easy to poach, or want to leave that
badly, I deserve to lose them. The open-ness of this policy is
"pro-registrant", and IMHO we should all keep those registrants in mind,
since it is to them who we are delivering value.
However, if we have made a wrong judgement call on this issue, lets fix it!
I have been wrong before... :)
>"Renew Anywhere" is going to cause a lot of problems with recordkeeping.
>For instance, if my customer adds two years with another RSP, how will I
>ever find out about it?
Again, I do not see this being a problem in that many registrants would
renew with other RSPs. The odds of them renewing with another registrar are
far greater. Why would they renew elsewhere? Again, my personal views may
be different from yours, and as such we may need to adjust our policy to be
reflective of what the majority of out RSPs want and need (and there is no
problem with this) - but I always personally cringe when policies are put
in place that try and make the customers desires difficult for them to
fulfill; sound like NS^H^H anyone you know?
Trying to *own* customers through restrictive policies is bad
(short-sighted) business. IMHO, the only way to *own* a customer is to
*earn* their business continually. Earning their business means giving them
value continually. Granted, not all customers appreciate this, but, I
maintain the strongest long term customers (the most valuable customers) do.
>The biggest part of the work is in the initial registration, dns setup,
>hosting or forwarding configuration. A lot of business models count on a
>stream of future renewals to make money.
Absolutely, us included! However, anyone who thinks they can control
customers through policies as opposed to continually earning their business
not do well in the long term.
It should be noted that in no way do I consider OpenSRS a perfect model. We
have lots of work to do and much room for improvement wrt *earning* our
business. I do assure you that we are aware of it, and will continue to
work hard to earn your support.
Regards,
sA
Scott Allan
Director OpenSRS
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
