What penalty for transferring a DN that I don't own

[Honan]

Further to the new ICANN registrar transfer policy, that insists a DN be transferred to a different registrar, just by a request from anyone, and no reply from the owner for 5 days;
What would be the likely penalty if I was to start requesting DNs (those DNs that I know have defunct email addresses for owners ) be transferred to me at an account with a different registrar?

[jberryhill]

Depending on your jurisdiction, it is some flavor of fraud - when you request the transfer, you are affirmatively representing that you are authorized by the domain registrant to initiate the transfer. The fact is, you are not so authorized. You are therefore obtaining a thing of value by means of a knowingly false assertion.

[MediaHound]

Plus, you wouldn't make many friends here.

[Honan]

Thank you kindly Jberryhill.
Clear and concise advice, as usual.

Yes, of course Media
However, expect thousands of people do it at GoDaddy as of 11/11/04

[jberryhill]

Oh, there is no doubt that it is going to happen on a massive scale.

[fatter]

I screwed up a year ago when consolidating my domains and requested a name I let expire by accident, 6 months after that the new owner called me up and threatened to sue, after I checked out my paperwork i realized GoDaddy transferred it to me, this guy is a law student at harvard I have since been trying to give it back to him kept my latest emails but he doesnt submit the request for a transfer back, I have traffic going to 404 error in the meantime. He said godaddy should just reclaim it for him being they allowed transfer, My point is with new system there will be inadvertant
transfers even typing wrong letters.

[MediaHound]

/clicks lock

[Dave Zan]

Thank you kindly Jberryhill.
Clear and concise advice, as usual.

Yes, of course Media
However, expect thousands of people do it at GoDaddy as of 11/11/04

Not just Go Daddy, but every other registrar out there, especially those (if
any) who don't provide locks.

Kindly inform as many as you possibly can about this. You can bet there are
still many out there who aren't aware of it.

[Acro]

Not sure if you read the policy carefully. Only new registrations are affected; existing domains will be affected as of June 12, 2005.

[fatter]

my rgistrar now offers free domain lock, i beleive its because of new policy, they also changed name from domain lock to Transfer secure, we can now change DNs without unlocking domain, that used to take an hour or more just to unlock, change dns and then relock again

[ssanders]

So if there is a domain I want, that is not mine, however, it is not an active website, and hasn't been for years... I can't request a transfer?

(I thought that was the whole point of the new rule...the purge the squatters)

[dotNetKing]

I still remain unsure about the actual mechanics of this.

At the moment, I normally have to give *two* authorisations - first, the *gaining* registrar requires my authorisation, and *then* the losing registrar.

Do we not still have that safeguard of the admin e-mail having to give authorisation to the *gaining* registrar first?

[jberryhill]

(I thought that was the whole point of the new rule...the purge the squatters)

Good Lord, no, that was not the point of the rule. The point was to enable registrants to pry their own domain names away from "sticky" registrars who were arbitrarily denying transfer requests. The point was most certainly not to enable theft of domain names due to extended hospital stays, vacations, etc. on the part of registrants.

[Acro]

Is a lock as good as the EPP code for non COM/NET domains?

[Dave Zan]

Is a lock as good as the EPP code for non COM/NET domains?

Theoretically (no pun intended ), the lock should be good because even
if, say, the auth code is retrieved and submitted along with the transfer-in
request to the gaining registrar and confirmed there, the lock disables any
transfers from taking place.

Depending on the registrar, the only way to remove the lock is to log inside
the domain name account and manually turn it off. Although the registrar has
the power to do that, they don't have the authority to just turn it off unless
they somehow gain consent from the registrant in the manner they see fit.

Ultimately, it still depends on the registrar.