According to the regulations introduced by Internet Corporation of Assigned Names & Numbers (ICANN) starting from December 1, 2016, a new Transfer Policy will be in effect with all registrars. To better serve our customers and ensure ICANN regulations are followed, we are updating our Universal Terms of Service Agreement as described below.
The Transfer Policy was formerly known as “Inter-Registrar Transfer Policy” or IRTP. Until this new change, this policy only covered domain transfers between registrars (it’s the policy that mandates the Forms of Authorization to be completed by a registrant prior to a transfer). The new policy also covers the process of changing ownership of the domain from one entity to another (registrant to registrant). Every time a change of registrant takes place, the policy is called upon and a series of confirmation and approval emails are triggered. What’s important to note is that simple updates to a registrant’s first name, last name, organization and email address on a particular domain also trigger the same notification and confirmation emails.
Our approach to implement this policy is:
- To design the required processes in a way that meets policy terms and withstands an ICANN audit.
- To minimize the impacts for our customers.
- To leverage policy options such as the “Designated Agent” or transfer-lock opt-outs to streamline the process and reduce registrant/customer impact as much as possible.
The ICANN policy can be found at https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/transfer-policy-2016-06-01-en
What is a Designated Agent in the context of this policy?
The Transfer Policy allows Registrants to delegate giving their consent to a Change of Registrant to a third-party on their behalf. The policy defines such third-party as a Designated Agent (DA):
1.2 “Designated Agent” means an individual or entity that the Prior Registrant or New Registrant explicitly authorizes to approve a Change of Registrant on its behalf.
In practical terms, this means that a Registrant can give authority to Ekhteear to confirm a Change of Registrant. When Ekhteear is enabled to act as a Designated Agent, the Registrant will not need to receive or confirm an email in order for a change to proceed. Instead, Ekhteear will always auto-approve any Change of Registrant.
In order to support this option, Ekhteear has made a change to its Universal Terms of Service Agreement. In this agreement, we have added the following language:
You explicitly authorize us to act as your “Designated Agent” (as defined in ICANN’s transfer policy) to approve each “Change of Registrant” (as defined in ICANN’s transfer policy) on your behalf. Backend Service Provider may modify its information from time to time in such a way which may constitute a “Change of Registrant” under ICANN’s transfer policy (the “Transfer Policy”). In such a case, You and Backend Service Provider explicitly opt out of any 60-day inter-registrar transfer lock that would otherwise be imposed under the Transfer Policy due to any such Change of Registrant. In addition, You and Backend Service Provider explicitly authorize the registrar of the IDP Domain to act as its “Designated Agent” (as defined in the Transfer Policy) to approve each “Change of Registrant” (as defined in the Transfer Policy) on its behalf.
WhoisGuard has also changed their Terms of Service to authorize Ekhteear as a Designated Agent for those who use their privacy services.
How will I know if a change has been made to my registrant information?
As a courtesy, Ekhteear will send confirmation emails to both the Prior Registrant and New Registrant when a change is made to the first name, last name, organization and/or email address of a particular domain (ie. the fields that trigger the new Transfer Policy.). However, if you are a WhoisGuard customer, you will not receive confirmation emails each time the anonymized email address is changed since these do not reflect changes to the underlying registrant information.
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