Comments on: Whois Does Not Establish Domain Name Ownership

By: Agence Web Algérie (hebergement, domaines, développement)

Agence Web Algérie (hebergement, domaines, développement) — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 09:26:26 +0000

But what about ICANN? It can oblige accredited registrars to let at least changing whois record, the wors, they just let you play (changing contact, admin infos) which is 0 protection

By: Frank Michlick

Frank Michlick — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 13:44:32 +0000

Miguel, there’s no clear answer to that – in any case, a written contract seems to be the best method to have proof of a transfer of ownership. However this doesn’t mean that you actually have verified ownership beforehand.

And btw, I am not a lawyer and this is not professional advice ;-)

By: john andrews

john andrews — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 07:40:57 +0000

Next time I’m only dealing direct. No funny business. Come alone. Bring the domain in a brown paper bag, and I’ll bring plain, unmarked bills, for a hand-off.

Seriously.. this raises so many more questions than answers, no?

By: Miguel Salcido

Miguel Salcido — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 18:20:54 +0000

So what is failed to mention here is a very critical question! How does one transfer ownership of a domain to someone else????? Obviously simply giving them access to the domain account to change whois info is not enough.

By: Paul W

Paul W — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 01:45:27 +0000

“Is it the escrow agents job/business to verify the ownership of a domain name?”

escrow.com explicitly lists “ability to confirm domain ownership directly with the registrar” as one of their buyer benefits. In fact, part of escrow.com’s whole pitch is that they are “like having an insurance policy that protects you against fraud, deception and irresponsibility.”

By: Adam Strong

Adam Strong — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 03:10:02 +0000

Is it the escrow agents job/business to verify the ownership of a domain name ?
Also it is fairly straight forward to have a contract written and do due diligence to verify ownership . . . and still use Escrow.com, Moniker or any other provider as the escrow agent. All they are doing is making sure the domain and money end up in the right hands.

By: Steve M

Steve M — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 02:29:52 +0000

jn makes an important point. Time to be extra careful when using escrow.com and other such domain “escrow” companies.

Especially with higher-value sales, it may be best for us all to actually speak with any “buyers” before transferring names to anyone we don’t already know and trust.

E-mail contact alone is not sufficient.

By: Charles Carreon

Charles Carreon — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 20:56:37 +0000

The law is slowly emerging from the fog that was created by years of spurious litigation in which the dangerous notion that “domains are not personal property” interfered with the proper operation of Adam Smith’s “invisible hand.” Now we just need to realize that property laws are needed for cyber-real-estate, just as they are for good old acreage. Someday, we’ll even have cyber-mortgages, and bubbles to go with them. What a bright future!

By: jn

jn — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 18:50:40 +0000

As a former employee of a relatively large registrar, I thought it was generally understood that WHOIS records are not authoritative. This comes into play especially with TLDs where the contact information is only stored in the registrars’ own databases and each registrar maintains their own WHOIS server. You can find whois records on registrar A’s whois server for domains that actually were transferred to regisrar B. This is common and you have to make sure you are pulling a WHOIS record from the correct WHOIS server (domaintools and other public whois web sites usually handle this automatically).

I think title insurance and also ownership certificates would be great (and profitable) products for a registrar or aftermarket service to offer.

While I am not familiar with the case above and all its details, it seems like escrow.com dropped the ball and their ownership verification process is not as rock solid as they might want you to believe.

Having used escrow.com in the past I was somewhat alarmed at how easy it would be to fool their systems and even manual verifications.

Escrow.com – if you are reading this feel free to reach out to me for consulting services on how you could make the process ROCK solid – my rates are relatively low :) I have over 8 years of operations experience at a large registrar, designing many of their registrar systems.

By: David

David — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 11:15:00 +0000

Time for Registrars to offer