There are some confusing aspects to domain name registration and maintenance, and unfortunately, some changes are about to be implemented that may well add to that confusion.
On December 1, 2016, new ICANN rules go into effect that create another step when you change the first name, last name, contact email or organization fields for your domain. Doing any of those things will now trigger the “trade process.” Which means those minor ownership information changes will now be treated the same way a domain transfer is treated.
The domain owner will have to approve those changes in two separate emails. The “current” and “previous” owner (which are usually the same person in the case of most of the changes above) need to approve the change or it will fail.
So, for example, if you update your name or the name of your organization, you’ll have to approve the change in two emails. If you update the email address associated with a domain name, you’ll have to approve that change at both the old and the new email address. That introduces some potential problems if you don’t have access to old and new email addresses, or you miss one of the two notices that go to the same address.
The changes are taking place due to an ICANN review of the transfer process that began almost a decade ago. There were potential issues with the original transfer policies that made domain hijacking a little too easy, so ICANN began looking at “special provisions” for registrant changes in order to prevent some of those problems.
Which sounds good, but what we’ve ended up with is a process that may make it more difficult to hijack a domain, but have the unintended effect of making a lot of day-to-day domain management tasks more difficult and confusing.
We’re not yet certain exactly how the changes will work for domains registered through DiscountASP.NET or Everleap. But we’ll do what we can to keep the confusion to a minimum, and we’ll give you some details when we know exactly how the changes will affect your domain management processes.
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