Are CIRA .ca registrars now allowed to hold portfolios of domain names?

[msn]

So this came to my attention today:

WHOIS search results
Domain name:	 	bankauction.ca
Domain name status:	 	registered
Creation date:	 	2009/07/15
Expiry date:	 	2011/07/15
Updated date:	 	2010/10/14
 	 	 
Registrar name:	 	Webnames.ca Inc.
Registrar number:	 	70
 	 	 
Registrant name:	 	Webnames Services Inc
 
Administrative contact
Name:	 	Steve Smith
Postal address:	 	21 Water St, 5th Floor
Vancouver BC V6B1A1 Canada
Phone:	 	1 604 6333097
Fax:	 	
Email:	 	steve@webnames.ca
 
Technical contact
Name:	 	Steve Smith
Postal address:	 	21 Water St, 5th Floor
Vancouver BC V6B1A1 Canada
Phone:	 	1 604 6333097
Fax:	 	
Email:	 	steve@webnames.ca
 	 	 
Name servers	 	 
DNS 1 hostname:	 	ns1.fabulous.com
DNS 2 hostname:		ns2.fabulous.com
DNS 3 hostname:		
DNS 4 hostname:		
DNS 5 hostname:		
DNS 6 hostname:		
DNS 7 hostname:	 	
DNS 8 hostname:		
DNS 9 hostname:		
DNS 10 hostname:		
DNS 11 hostname:		
DNS 12 hostname:		
DNS 13 hostname:

Webnames Services Inc. happens to have the same office location, telephone number, e-mail address, and staff as Webnames.ca Inc., a CIRA .ca registrar.

Are they now allowed with CIRA to own portfolios for themselves? Who determines if a winning bid or a TBR will go to a customer or simply to Webnames instead?

[6sons]

I dont have a problem with registrars owning domains through certain procedures and under certain conditions. However they should not be able to register for themselves in tbr under any circumstances. In that case we have someone "working for us" who is also "competing with us". So with registrars picking up tbr's for themselves - this should be off-limits. Otherwise, we all have to become mega-rars just to register an expiring name.

[Provider]

I think there are registrars that use TBR sessions in order to acquire domain names for themselves.

[liberator]

they absolutely are not allowed to hold any domains that do not directly reflect their industry or business activities.

Also the TBR guidelines state that the request to registrar a domain must be made on behalf of a customer/client so registering for themselves would not be allowed.

[stewie]

there is no doubt that many registrars are keeping names... please lets not be foolish.

is CIRA really watching for this? ummmm no is my guess.




*and for the record...this is nothing to do with Jay...

I do believe Jay is one of the good guys

[liberator]

@stewie they are infact watching this, a registrar was recently decredited from my understanding for this exact reason. I appreciate the vote of confidence

[msn]

So when it is so easy as for Webnames.ca Inc. to say, "Oh, it is not us, it is Webnames Services Inc." - just like Momentous and their nest of companies, then where is CIRA really?

There seems to be two sets of rules in play for .ca!

[6sons]

Exactly. Over the years I have spotted numerous times that rars were grabbing tbr's. With the privacy setting this only adds to it. No way Cira is watching that closely. But like I stated earlier they should not be excluded from owning domains any more than realtors are from owning real estate or stock brokers are from owning stock. Its the tbr's where the direct conflict occurs especially when there seems to be no limit on how many ordering q's a rar can have.

[Adam Dicker]

I have a really high up CIRA contact if anyone needs it to find out for sure.

PM me if you want it.

-=DCG=-

[whitebark]

Sure it's not just a default tbr registrant account that the domain owner never changed over?

[DropWizard.com]

The other issue is catching names for a client and having them default after. The registrar ends up with the domain.

I know pool used to have a lot of those and they would just drop them the following year when the domain expired.

[thebutler]

With the privacy settings I can't see how anyone could find out how much of this is happening. Nice.

[msn]

Sure it's not just a default tbr registrant account that the domain owner never changed over?

Sure - if it were a default TBR account they would not put it in the ownership of another affiliated company, and more to the point, they have held it for two years.