Hello Sean,

You are right that there is very little understanding or policy behind
the use of
Registrant, administration, technical and billing contacts.
Historically all these contacts were from a single organisation (e.g a
University or CSIRO) and that organisation could manage these contacts
how they wished, but that is now seldom the case.

This is a problem both for .au and gtld spaces.

I believe that you are correct that the admin field could be used for
identifying the agent associated with a domain name, and the registrant
field could be used for the actual legal holder of the domain name
licence.   There does need to be some clearer instructions and
guidelines both for individual registrants and those that act as agents
for registrants.

In terms of customer contact, part of the problem is that there appears
to be a large number of individuals that act as agents for a relatively
small number of domains.
These individuals typically do not want the overheads (costs?) of
signing up to a formal reseller agreement with a registrar.  Most
registrars that do have reseller arrangements do not directly contact
the customer, but work with their resellers to assist them with
communications such as renewal and contact updates.   

Many of the disputes seem to arise where a registrant has registered a
domain name directly through a registrar (ie a retail customer of the
registrar), and at some later stage used the services of another
supplier for example web site development, web hosting etc.  In these
situations the supplier often clashes with the registrars over who
should communicate with the customer.  The simple explanation is that
registrars maintain an internal database which identifies retail and
reseller customers.  To move from retail to reseller, or reseller to
reseller, is generally left at the registrant's choice (ie the registrar
will seek the registrant's approval for a change, just as the policy
requires a registrant to approve a change between registrars).   If a
registrant does not want to be contacted by a registrar, and prefers to
deal with a single supplier for domainnames, web hosting etc - there are
procedures put in place by each registrar to allow a registant to
nominate their supplier in the registrar internal database (ie a retail
to reseller or reseller to reseller transfer).   The fundamental
misunderstaniding of these issues is resulting in some churn in the
industry, as agents move from one supplier to another.  The problems
seem to arise when registrars have both retail and reseller customers.
I think the problems are solvable by discussing the problem rationally
with whichever domain name registrar is involved - rather than assuming
some sort of dirty trick in each case.

There is currently an auDA committee looking at the issue of what
constitutes a reseller - and I expect that it will be easier in future
to be officially recognised as a reseller - with the obligation of
complying with the code of conduct, and subsequently registrar systems
can be used to identifier an agent as a reseller in their internal
databases.

I expect that the appropriate use of the public records to identify
registrant, registrar, and registrant's agent (or reseller), may help
alleviate disputes over customer contact, as the status of names in
registrar internal databases are not immediately public and easily
verifiable.   Although resellers can certainly see what names are listed
to their internal account in most registrar systems.  Agents that are
not listed as resellers in a registrar's system are effectively
invisible to the registrar.

The issues of customer contact are addressed within the code of conduct
- but they do not cover agents that do not identify themselves as
resellers to registrars.

Regards,
Bruce



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Sean Finn [mailto:sean§teknol.com.au] 
> Sent: Wednesday, 24 September 2003 11:06 AM
> To: dns§lists.auda.org.au
> Subject: RE: [DNS] details supplied was: [DNS] Enetica 
> problems, anyone?
> 
> 
> I beleive it is on-topic.
> 
> It is an ongoing issue, constantly being brought up, and 
> quite possibly THE most on-topic issue that we have had on 
> here in months that has required continued input, and discussion.
> 
> The issue of an IT contractor being told to just 'do 
> everything' I.T. is a real scenario.
> 
> Perhaps the extra contact fields, E.G. the Tech Contact, and 
> the Billing contact, need to undergo some real use rather 
> than the current scenario where they are widely misunderstood 
> in practise.
> 
> Im still formulating my opinion, I will suggest something 
> more concrete shortly, and only to this list for discussion 
> and opinion, and if an individual with authority or weight 
> beleives it is a good idea, they can pick up the ball and run with it.
> 
> Does anyone have any suggestions for how all of the contact 
> fields can be put to use equally. E.G. Give all fields some 
> real weight and distinct purpose, and public accessibility?
> 
> Anyway, i need to go off and research my opinion in my lunch 
> break, but the fact that there are still constant problems 
> and complaints and excess red-tape suggest that something can 
> be done to refine the management of .au on an individual 
> domain basis, without breaking anything, but making it just a 
> little more fluid to use, time efficient, yet still as safe 
> as the current policies AuDA has put in place.
> 
> -Sean.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Anand Kumria [mailto:wildfire§progsoc.uts.edu.au]
> Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 2003 3:32 PM
> To: dns§lists.auda.org.au
> Subject: Re: [DNS] details supplied was: [DNS] Enetica 
> problems, anyone?
> 
> 
> On Tue, Sep 23, 2003 at 03:19:19PM +1000, Bennett Oprysa wrote:
> > If you have power of attorney for a person, can you go down 
> to the RTA 
> > and get their driver's licence for them?
> 
> There is such a thing as 'limited power of attorney'. For 
> example if you want someone else to have control of you 
> account the Commonwealth Bank will ask you to execute one of those.
> 
> Anyway this is somewhat off-topic.
> 
> Anand
> 
> --
>  `` We are shaped by our thoughts, we become what we think.  
> When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never  
> leaves. '' -- Buddha, The Dhammapada
> 
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> 
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