Paul,
I have received information that Tucows is in fact allowing a reseller to have an option on domains that are expiring without going through the normal deletion process. It appears that their service would involve not dropping domains from the registry and transferring them to those who signup for this new "service." I'm seriously considering signing an Enom agreement next week. I am not sure that I can in good conscience continue to send in domain registrations on behalf of clients if there is even a reasonably good chance that they are doing something like this with expiring domains. I consider it a breach of trust. I almost think that I have some obligation to notify existing customers of this change in policy at OpenSRS that was done without any disclosure to us. If I did this, I'd still offer OpenSRS registration services, but I'd disclose the details of the expired domain program, and my comments on it, and I'd let the customer make the choice. Friday, Friday, December 21, 2001, 11:46:30 AM, Paul Chvostek wrote: > On Fri, Dec 21, 2001 at 12:52:33PM -0600, Donny Simonton wrote: >> >> It's an interesting concept and one that I am sure some registrars will >> try very soon because they do read this mailing list. From a reseller's >> standpoint, this is a good thing, because you will be able to basically >> sell domains that have worked for over a year now and may have a >> considerable amount of traffic. And you would be able to charge a >> higher premium for these types of domains. From a competing registrar's >> standpoint, I think it sucks! :) > If this is what they're doing, I would fully support it, but that's NOT > what has been said. Ken mentioned "getting access to 'dropped names'", > and Scott mentioned "a service or services that involve expiring names" > and that has been the TOTAL extent of the hints as to what's going on. > I think a valuable service would be for OSRS to, upon expiry of a domain, > change the DNS servers either to (1) something the RSP specifies or (2) > OpenSRS's own DNS servers in order to (1) let the RSP put up a page that > lets the customer pay for (renew) the domain, or (2) let OpenSRS put up > a page that redirects browsers to the RSP's payment/renewal page. > This would be analagous to what we already do for hosted web sites. If > a customer is more than 60 days past due and their domain still points > to our name servers, we redirect their site to a page that says the site > is offline and for them to contact our billing department in order to > reactivate service. > But nobody from OpenSRS has said anything remotely resembling this, or > in fact anything else they might have in mind. Scott said this was > because he hadn't seen direct questions, but the questions have now been > asked and have not been answered. > So far, the only *facts* we know are that OpenSRS is pointing RSP's > expired domains at a third party who is not associated with the RSPs, > and that OpenSRS is working on a new expiry-related product about which > they will not give us any details. > Tucows must by now realize that developing and offering certain types of > products will drive away a portion of their customer base. If they come > offer a product that does this, they must assume that the revenue it > generates will be greater than the revenue they lose by pissing us off. -- Best regards, William X Walsh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -- Webcertificates.info SSL Certificates for resellers from $49ea
