At 1/21/02 4:51 AM, Charles Daminato wrote: >Effectively it's a matter of education, which will take time (as it took >time for many registrants to realize there was more of a choice than just >network solutions).
However, in this case, the people who need educating are the registrars, which makes the problem much simpler. I don't see why it would take 60 days or more for Neulevel to make sure that each registrar is showing the AuthInfo key in the customer's domain management screen. At least, I sure hope that there's going to be a consistent method for how end users are going to get their AuthInfo keys from their current registrar, and that Neulevel is going to enforce it. If, instead, Neulevel is going to allow each registrar to provide the AuthInfo key in a separate manner, that's going to be a serious issue -- I already spend half my time trying to help customers figure out how to approve transfers from various registrars. I need to be able to tell my customer something like "Go to your old registrar, log in to your account management page, and look for the the text that says 'transfer approval key'". This requires that Neulevel (and Afilias) place requirements on registrars for: - Terminology: the AuthInfo token MUST be referred to by the same phrase (in English, anyway) by all registrars. "Transfer approval key", for example. Otherwise I'll be telling customers "look for a thing that might say 'AuthInfo' or 'key' or something like that, somewhere at your old registrar." - Accessibility: the token MUST be accessible somewhere in the customer's account management pages for all domains, without the customer having to specifically request that the registrar send it or show it. The latter is especially important, otherwise we'll find all kinds of shenanigans going on, just like the current CNO transfer situation: I can just see some registrars not sending the token to you until you write and explain to them why you want to transfer (one registrar already does this for CNO transfers -- they won't enable an "approve this transfer" link until you explain why you want to switch), and of course, where's the registrar incentive to respond to such requests promptly? I really would ask that Neulevel rethink this whole thing, though. Short of the registry really cracking down hard on registrars to make the AuthInfo tokens available, this scheme puts all the power in the hands of the losing registrar to withhold the token. It's in their interest to do so, just as it's in the interest of dishonest registrars to reject CNO transfers now. (Maybe I'm cynical, but I suspect this is already happening -- I sense registrar foot-dragging around this issue already.) I submit that this kind of thing -- inter-registrar issues -- is exactly what a neutral registry SHOULD be handling, to make sure that registrants don't get screwed by the losing registrar. If Neulevel wants to use AuthInfo tokens, that's fine -- but have the registry handle them and send them to the admin contact on request. -- Robert L Mathews, Tiger Technologies "The trouble with doing something right the first time is that nobody appreciates how difficult it was."
