Registrant Type

I think they're targetting Acorn members as it's an easy bust.

It has been brought to our attention that you do not meet the criteria
to use the opt out service. The reason for this is that we believe that the registrant of the domain name as recorded on the register database (**) is not the full legal name of a living individual.

Please note that we have removed the opt out, and that the address details that we hold for you will be published on the WHOIS without further notice.

 

There surely cannot be anything wrong with putting " admin t/a domainforsale@xyw.co.uk" as there is no legal restriction on having such a trading name.

DG

 

It's not correct and if you telephoned Nominet to ask them if it was acceptable, and spoke to someone in authority on such things, I doubt that person would say it was. Neither the Registrant, the Address or the Trading As field should be used for anything unrelated to their specified use.

As a tag holder and member, have you consider the solution I suggested here? Another option, if you make use of custom name servers, might be to register a domain such as "the-above-domain-name-may-be-for-sale.co.uk" and configure "whateveryoulike.the-above-domain-name-may-be-for-sale.co.uk" or "tel-0870-555-555-to-enquire.the-above-domain-name-may-be-for-sale.co.uk" or simply just "ns.the-above-domain-name-may-be-for-sale.co.uk" as name servers. TULLNET have registered "this-domain-name-is-for-sale.co.uk" for such a purpose.

 

They can bust you if you put in a bogus phone# like 000-000-0000

 

Why would someone go to the trouble of doing as I described and *then* putting a false phone number? Since it's an "unofficial" way of showing a phone number, I don't think anyone's going to "bust you".

 

sorry In, can I call you in ?

I was responding to admin's post

"What you must do

4 You have various responsibilities set out generally in this contract. You must also:

4.1 give and keep us notified of your correct name, postal address and any phone, "

http://www.nic.uk/registrants/legal/terms/

 

If you really, really are t/a "domain for sale" then you can put that in the t/a field, however in all of these cases that is obviously not the case.

Putting "domain for sale" etc in the legal registrant field is also not acceptable - and, I should warn you, very dodgy since it can lead to the name being cancelled for false details.

The nameserver trick is cute and I've seen it say

if.you.are.the.registrant.then.contact.your.tagholder

but again this is a misuse and we will ask for it is to be removed.

Just to be clear this is a general sweep, of the type we do regularly, no individuals tag holders/registrants are being singled out. We did one last year on people putting N/A in the registrant field.

The good news is that we are going to provide a "WHOIS for tags" later this year, where all of the data shown will be provided by tag holders and one of the fields is specifically designed to allow you to put that sort of thing in:

http://www.nominet.org.uk/digitalAssets/2989_WhoisForTagHoldersDec.pdf

 

I forgot to say, I do have some sympathy with the notion that we should allow some form of free text to appear on the domain but there are obvious concerns that it will be badly abused - offensive material, political statements etc. If anyone has a practical mechanism whereby they think this can be achieved without allowing it all to go pear-shaped then please let me know.

 

Currently the registrant type is not mandatory.

This is a general clean up, but like most general clean ups starts with a complaint about a specific misuse.

If you want to make a complaint about the names with "AB"....

 

How about being able to submit text, which will then be added to database and a reference number given to each one. Then you could select which message you want to display.

 

No that's not what I mean. Displaying additional info is easy. My question is how, practically, could we provide a service that was not wide open to all sorts of abuse?

 

Email addresses are just another way of contacting someone. Currently you have can send a snail mail to the address or, better still, visit the web site and see what that says.

The point is using the WHOIS to indicate the availability of the domain. Once someone knows it is available then the contact will generally be quite easy.

 

The idea was that you could only display messages that you had requested and had been appoved.
For example I email Nominet and request a message that says:
"This domain name is for sale at http://www.blogsdomains.co.uk"
You email back to say that it's been added to the database and is available as M00234.
I put M00234 in the a message field and up it pops on WHOIS.

 

See what you mean. However the approval bit is a job creation scheme. Unless you mean there is a pre-approved list, from which you can select one?

 

You could have a standard list, plus a charge for adding custom ones.

 

What is it actually an abuse of if the name servers are valid and resolve the domain name?

Did you delete the names without warning or attempt to make contact first? If the latter, how did you establish the owner of the domain name?

I've seen this talked about. Will "most" users know about it? Doesn't it largely replicate the Registrant's Agent URL (is that a member only thing - I have never been quite sure) - obviously that is dependant on whether the Registrant's Agent has elected to have a URL and whether it resolves to a working web site?

This obviously doesn't assist those that aren't tag holders. The company I am employed by, which has a Nominet Membership, doesn't own any domain names which it wants to sell. However some of its customers might possibly wish to sell one or more of their domain names one day. Personally, for non tag holders, I cannot think of a workable solution which wouldn't require moderation (staff = expense).

 

I think it would be hard to have anything really meaningful on a pre-approved list. "This domain name is for sale" doesn't mean much on it's own. Most messages are going to require at least an email address or telephone number. Without moderation, those fields could be edited to display anything one chooses.

What kind of a boring job would it be to sit at a screen all day, moderating custom WHOIS messages. :mrgreen: