New restrictions face domain name resellers.
Domain name registrar resellers will face new restrictions under ICANN’s new registrar accreditation agreement.
Several of these restrictions were spelled out in an email from eNom to its resellers yesterday:
1. If, in the future, eNom is obligated to provide a link to an ICANN webpage, Resellers must also provide such a link (at this time no link is necessary).
2. Resellers are prohibited from displaying the ICANN or ICANN-Accredited Registrar logo, or from otherwise representing themselves as accredited by ICANN unless they have written permission from ICANN to do so.
3. Resellers shall identify the sponsoring registrar, eNom, or provide a means for identifying the sponsoring registrar, such as a link to the InterNIC Whois lookup service. Any registration agreement used by Resellers shall include all registration agreement provisions and notices required by the ICANN RAA and any ICANN Consensus Policies.
4. Resellers must ensure that the identity and contact information provided by the customer of any privacy or proxy registration service offered or made available by Resellers in connection with each registration will be deposited with eNom or held in escrow or, alternatively, display a conspicuous notice to such customers at the time an election is made to utilize such privacy or proxy service that their data is not being escrowed.
All of these changes are welcome and should help improve the image of the reseller business. My only concern is with loopholes. Consider #4, “display a conspicuous notice to such customers at the time an election is made to utilize such privacy or proxy service that their data is not being escrowed”. Just what is a conspicuous notice? I worry that a reseller will not properly disclose to a customer that the data isn’t being escrowed. If the reseller goes out of business or has bad intentions, domain owners can lose their domains.
Two of the three largest domain name registrars — eNom and Tucows — have resellers as the foundation of their businesses.
Hm Namecheap will now also have to state they are Enom…
Alot of domain resellers may be upset. Some of them place a strong interest in remaining white label.
GoDaddy, eNom and Tucows will be secretly pleased I’m sure as their brand name will be placed on thousands of websites.
Overall this is a good idea to keep the customers more secure.
Mark – perhaps they’ll be pleased, but the registrars may appreciate the white label aspect. Now people will contact them for support when they should be contacting the reseller.
This decision by ICANN should be welcome news for all parties involved – customers, resellers and registrars. Customers will use resellers if they are getting a better price and service and a more personal relationship than they would through the registrar, otherwise the reseller will not be there for a long time to come, and the customer deserves everything he can get from the ICANN registrar and more by using a reseller, otherwise it does not make sense to use the service of a reseller. The most important part of the equation is that the registrar should not compete with the reseller by offering lower prices or better service if the customer deals directly through them rather than through the reseller. We have decided to inform our customers about our association with the registrar, and since Tucows does most of its business through 9,000 resellers worldwide, the competition does not really exist to take the customers or to undercut the reseller in any way. At least ICANN finally acknowledges that such an entity called a registrar reseller exists. In the past they referred to resellers as third-party entities and they could not communicate with or help the reseller’s customers.