I have held my tongue on this one for a long time and now will make some
brief comments below.
Elliot Noss
Tucows Inc.
96 Mowat Ave., Toronto, Ontario
M6K 3M1
(416) 538-5494
----- Original Message -----
From: easygoing <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Scott Allan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: Hostroute.com <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, May 14, 2001 11:30 AM
Subject: RE: Re[2]: Chargebacks
> The point that you and William continue to ignore in your
> arguments is that the reseller provided you enough proof of
> non-payment to suspend the domain, or in reality, to take it
> away from the end user for non-payment.
>
> If the reseller has provided you enough proof to take that
> action, then the reseller has provided you enough proof to
> return the domain to his control. For whatever he/she
> wishes to do with it.
>
> Otherwise OpenSRS has stolen the domain from the reseller or
> the end user, as OpenSRS has been paid for the product and
> refuses to give it to either party. If the reseller did not
> provide adequate proof, then OpenSRS stole it from the end
> user. If the reseller did provide adequate proof to justify
> taking it from the end user, then the proof was adequate
> enough to return the domain to the reseller and OpenSRS has
> stolen the domain from the reseller.
>
Whether you like it or not, what OpenSRS does is facilitate a relationship
between a Reseller and a Registrant by subsuming a relationship between a
Registrant and us as Registrar. There are absolute obligations that we are
required to flow through and to honour, and, for all of us, we need be
absolutely conspicuous in the way in which we do this.
> You are hiding behind ICANN requirements instead of
> admitting the truth, that it is easier for you to just take
> it away from the reseller since you have already been paid
> and have lost nothing in the transaction.
>
> Harsh words? Yes, but the truth is often harsh.
>
> The fact that other Registrars return the domain name to the
> reseller in these cases and have not lost their
> accreditation proves the point that the contract can be
> worded to return the domain name to the reseller without
> losing accreditation.
>
The only fact here is that other Registrars are not living up to their
ICANN-mandated obligations. If they choose to do that, that is their
perogative. If they are small enough to fly under the radar and not get
caught, lucky for them. I can assure you that if we were to do that,
Verisign and Register.com would have us before ICANN in a second. Be clear,
they hate our business model. All of you are competing very successfully
with them. They would like nothing better than to bring this process under
scrutiny.
ICANN is an incredibly overworked group that has more on its plate than it
can be expected to deal with. Your point that because these Registrars have
not been sanctioned therefore the practice is allowed by ICANN is akin to
saying that because millions of people smoke dope or avail themselves of
prostitutes without being arrested must mean these activities are legal
(this is not an invitation to discuss these issues here ;-)). Hope for your
sake that their practices stay below ICANN's radar.
Resellers are our customers. We can best serve them by living within our
regulatory requirements, and by promoting positions that are pro-Reseller
while being consistant with being pro-Registrant. By the way, to me these
things are complementary and not mutually exclusive, especially for
successful Resellers.
Regards
> OpenSRS is a good company. It helped make the cost of
> domain registration reasonable and it provide the software
> to make it workable. I don't have problem with OpenSRS's
> price, as a couple of dollars one way or another is not that
> important to us. We use domain name registration as a
> marketing tool, not a profit center. Nor do I care how much
> money OpenSRS makes off the process. That is none of my
> businesses.
>
> The only problem with OpenSRS as a company and of it's
> management is that you have never decided who your client
> is, so you end up harming both parties when there is a
> problem instead of making a fair decision and returning the
> domain to the proper owner, whether it is the end user or
> the reseller, based on the facts of the case.
>
> William is right in one thing. These issues have been
> discussed in the past and it is obvious that OpenSRS is not
> that concerned about their resellers. So in one way it is a
> waste of time.
>
> But that does not mean the issues will not continue to be
> raised as long as it remains a problem for the resellers.
>
> We still have over a thousand clients with OpenSRS, so it's
> continuing stability is important to us. We would prefer to
> have all our clients with one Registrar, as it would make it
> easier for us to manage. We are offering incentives to our
> clients to move their domains from OpenSRS so eventually we
> will have moved them all as their domains renew. Since many
> initially signed on for multiple years, it will take time.
>
> We would have preferred to stay with OpenSRS. It would have
> been easier for us to do so than convince all our clients to
> move their domains to another registrar. And we would have
> made more money in the process, as we are not making
> anything on the domains that we are moving. But the issue
> of charge backs is just to important to ignore.
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Scott Allan [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> > Sent: Monday, May 14, 2001 8:27 AM
> > To: William X. Walsh; easygoing
> > Cc: Hostroute.com; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > Subject: Re[2]: Chargebacks
> >
> >
> > At 02:45 PM 5/11/01 -0700, William X. Walsh wrote:
> > >Hello easygoing,
> > >
> > >Friday, May 11, 2001, 11:03:25 AM, easygoing wrote:
> > > > And yes, William, this is legal. At least two other
> > > > Registrars allow this that have been in
> > business as long as
> > > > OpenSRS and neither one has lost their
> > accredition. It just
> > > > depends on how the contract is drawn up that
> > is on the web
> > > > site.
> > >
> > >Just because they haven't had a rogue reseller
> > abuse this yet and get
> > >caught with their pants down (thus forcing a
> > review of their policies)
> > >doens't make it legal.
> >
> > Right on the proverbial money. This practice
> > clearly violates ICANN policy.
> >
> > We do not wan't to be seen as defending this
> > ICANN policy, it is obviously
> > flawed on it's own merits. We are working on
> > getting better policies to
> > support these situations.
> >
> > And, to be clear, we will *delete* names for if a
> > reseller reports them as
> > charged back, and we attempt to contact the
> > registrant, and they do not
> > respond within a certain reasonable timeframe.
> > Typically, we do not refund
> > past the first couple of days, however we have
> > "split the difference" and
> > "discounted" registrations in extreme
> > circumstances with measurable
> > financial impact. We evaluate these incidents on
> > a case by case basis.
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > sA
> > Scott Allan
> > Director OpenSRS
> > [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >
> >
> >
>
>
