At 7/16/03 1:33 PM, R. Peter Ejtel wrote: >The Registries require pre-payment of domains and those conducting the >registration are responsible to ensure they have received payment for the >domain before submitting the application for processing. > >Our policy on use of domain locking is outlined on our website, >http://resellers.tucows.com/opensrs/resources/docs/lockingguide.pdf, which >states you cannot lock a domain against the registrant's wishes. > >We do make very limited exceptions to our articulated policy. If the >reseller can provide clear evidence of a charge-back provided to you by the >credit card company, our compliance department will place REGISTRAR-HOLD >status on the domain after notifying the registrant. REGISTRAR-HOLD removes >the domain from the zone file and stops it from resolving on the Internet. >This effectively makes the domain useless. We will remove the >REGISTRAR-HOLD status if proof of payment is provided to us. We are not >in a position to adjudicate disputes between a Registrant and a Reseller.
So that sounds like a "no" answer to my first question, then; a domain name cannot be placed irretrievably out of reach of a customer who has done a chargeback. If a reseller claims the customer hasn't paid (by presenting chargeback documentation), but the customer claims he *has* paid (presenting some sort of payment evidence that the reseller claims is inaccurate), the domain would probably be released to the customer. Fair enough. That brings us to the second question, then.... >Our Reseller Contracts allow you to add your own terms and conditions so >long as they do not violate any of our terms or policies including the >domain locking policy. Right -- but my question is, what *is* the OpenSRS policy is on the issue of resellers "repossessing" domains via additional contract clauses? I'm no lawyer, but as far as I can see, nothing in the OpenSRS/reseller contract or the reseller/customer contract forbids this. (If the registrant was legally changed to be the reseller, the domain locking policy would not be an issue.) So based on your response, it sounds like this would be okay. I'd rather have a definitive answer, though, so while I hate to be a pest, I'll ask the specific question again: If a reseller adds a contract provision that provides for the reseller to become the registrant of a domain name when certain events occur (such as fraud, which includes chargebacks for services properly rendered), would that violate any OpenSRS contract term or policy? If it wouldn't: when OpenSRS was notified that the reseller had invoked this clause to repossess a domain, would they recognize the registrant change as being legitimate (in the same sense that a normal registrant transfer is legitimate, meaning it won't be undone without something extreme happening like a court order restoring the original registrant) -- or would compliance do the same thing they would in the case of "administrative hold", where they would accept complaints from both the reseller and customer, giving the customer the benefit of the doubt if the arguments conflict? Thanks again. -- Robert L Mathews, Tiger Technologies A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
