When the admin and tech contact person disappears

[onlinestoreca]

I have a friend who works at a volunteer organization. The organization's domain name was purchased by a volunteer and they used their own name as the admin and technical contact. This person has mvoed away and will/can not return correspondence.

I have contacted CIRA for advice or help. Is this the only route? The Registrar seemed fairly useless. Has anyone else had any experience with how this is going to play out?

Thanks.

[whitebark]

I'm guessing the problem is not with the name per say but that they used a personal email address for the admin contact?

[onlinestoreca]

I'm guessing the problem is not with the name per say but that they used a personal email address for the admin contact?

Yes, apparently the person used their personal information to register the name.

Since this probably happens more than once in a while I will post updates here for reference for others in the future.

The name is very poor and has no value, but it is in all of their literature. It should be obvious to the registrar that this is not a hijacking case. There are also contacts of people who can confirm that this website belongs to them. There is no dispute, the other person is just no longer reachable.

CIRA has informed me that this is the Registrars issue. I have sent a second email to the Registrar to push them on the issue.

I am surprised that this hasn't been a huge issue for some websites. I was expecting CIRA to give me steps to resolve an issue like this even if they weren't responsible, not just leave it in the hands of each Registrar.

[whitebark]

CIRA has informed me that this is the Registrars issue. I have sent a second email to the Registrar to push them on the issue.

Which registrar is it? Maybe one of us has a contact for a higher up.

[onlinestoreca]

Misk.com - They are based out of New York. (I have no idea why they went that route.) CIRA has told me that they are a sub-registrar of Tucows.

Misk.com has told me there is nothing that can be done, only the admin or tech can make a change, unless you have a trademark and pursue legal action.

This seems like a pretty poor system. I think I will become a domain name specialist that attains generic domains for companies (because they can not be trademarked) and then either blackmail them later when it is critical to them, or just sell the name.

Thanks for the replies Whitebark. If anyone knows anyone at Tucows it would be greatly appreciated by this volunteer organization that I am trying to help.

[msn]

The key here is if the registrant name is that of the organisation, in which case you can do a manual change and it does not matter what is in the administrative and technical contacts.

If the the registrant is the other person, then you need to let it drop or find the registrant.

And by the way, there happens to be someone connected to Tucows on the forums; he is running for the CIRA board.

[onlinestoreca]

The registrant name is the name of the person and not the organization. This seems like a natural way to fill out the form. If I am a tech person and asked to register the name I would put all of my own information in the registration because it will make my tech job easier. Unfortunately for some companies, when the tech person leaves this can cause an important problem. As domainers I don't think we can appreciate this situation very well because it all seems obvious to us.

The organization is going to have to not renew the name next year and then have the website go down for 4 - 6 weeks, which will be a big problem then pick the name up in the drop. That seems like a serious penalty for an organization not understanding domain registrations.

[DropWizard.com]

The situation sucks but short of legal action (it may be cheaper to reprint the literature) or letting the name drop I don't see a registrar doing what you want.

[whitebark]

If the domain name is available in .org claim it now and move the site in advance. And if you have access to the Hosting account point it to the new domain with a 301 redirect.