Domains New ICANN's domain transfer policy - change of ownership June 2016

eva2000 · Jul 1, 2016

First I heard of this ICANN’s new transfer policy will impact your business and your customers - OpenSRS

Domain transfers between registrars and registrants happen thousands of times every day. You would think that such an ubiquitous process works well, like a well-oiled machine. Unfortunately, ICANN and the ICANN community do not share this view. ICANN has recently concluded a lengthy review process of all the policies that govern domain transfers in the gTLD space. The result is a new policy that modifies the process of changing domain ownership from one registrant to another. The implementation of the policy will be imposed on all registrars.

What is this policy?

The policy we are discussing here is the Transfer Policy, formerly known as “Inter-Registrar Transfer Policy” or IRTP. Up until now, 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 triggers the same slew of notification and confirmation emails.
Click to expand...

When is it going into effect?

The new transfer policy is scheduled to become effective on December 1, 2016.

How will it impact you?

Once the policy is in effect, the impact on resellers and their end users will be visible. It can be summarized as follows:

Any changes to first name, last name, organization or email address fields for the owner of any gTLD domain name will now start a trade process

The process involves obtaining explicit confirmation from current and new registrants before a change can be completed

After a change of registrant has been completed, previous and new registrant need to receive notifications about the change, with the option of reversing the change

After a change of registrant has been completed, the domain is by default locked for transfers to a new registrar for the following 60 days

Click to expand...

Q: What would trigger this change of registrant process?

A: Making any change to the first name, last name, organization field, or email within the registrant contact object, will start the process. An approval email will go out to both the old and new registrants.
Click to expand...

Q: What happens if the new registrant approves the request but the old registrant denies the request?

A: This will cancel the whole request and the whois will revert back to the previous registrant’s info.

Q: What happens if the new registrant denies the request ?

A: Then the change of registrant request is canceled and the previous whois info remains the same.

Q: How long does the new registrant have to approve the request before it expires/times out?

A: 7 days from the change request.

Q: How long does the old registrant have to approve the request before it expires/times out?

A: 7 days from the time the new registrant approves the request.
Click to expand...

The underlined parts are most relevant .. so if you update your domain registration details like first/last name, organization or email address you will undergo approval email verification and domain is locked for 60 days preventing domain transfers.

So if you want to transfer your domain to a new domain registrar, do not change those contact details until after you transferred your domain. Otherwise, you need to wait 60+ days before you can transfer after contact detail changes !

Log in / Register

Forums

Want to subscribe to topics you're interested in?

Domains New ICANN's domain transfer policy - change of ownership June 2016

eva2000 Administrator Staff Member

.

Log in / Register

Useful Searches

Want to subscribe to topics you're interested in?

Domains New ICANN's domain transfer policy - change of ownership June 2016

eva2000 Administrator Staff Member

.