> I believe you have solved your problem by checking whois first (1: check
> whois, 2: charge card, 3: register domain). The only drawback is that if
> the domain registered by someone else between the time you check whois and
> you submit the registration (which, granted, may only be a few seconds),
> you'll have to refund the customer. You'll also have to explain to the
> customer that their domain was taken only seconds before you were able to
> register it for them - a big problem from a customer service stand point.
>
No, if you're doing a whois, the domain might have been registered up to
48 hours before and still not shown up on whois.
> The only other solution would be to talk the Powers That Be into
> implementing a way to "hold" domains. Holding a domain for a minute or two
> would eliminate this problem.
>
Even better, credit card companies have come up with a way to
"hold" payments. It's called preauthorization. If your merchant bank
doesn't offer this, get a new merchant bank.
> "Holding a domain" has another (very similar) benefit from a billing
> standpoint. [Below, assume an ISP is registering domains for its customers
> via opensrs]. If an ISP were allowed to "hold" a domain for say, a maximum
> of 24 hours, this would allow the ISP to lock the domain down before
> charging the card, then release the domain if the card doesn't go
> through. A 1-2 minute holding period would work just fine to eliminate
> your above issue in a fully automated environment. For an environment
> where an ISP wants to have a human check each registration before allowing
> it to go through, a 24 hour holding period would be more practical. In
> this way, the ISP has time to process a card or wait for a cash payment,
> review the format of the application, etc, but could HOLD the domain for
> their customer without the customer losing it. The ISP (via opensrs) would
> be responsible for releasing or verifying registration w/in the HOLD
> period. [This would obviously require a HOLD status to be maintained and
> acknowledged by all registrars including TuCows].
>
This would allow cybersquatting without even paying for the domain. That
is unacceptable.
> With human processing and without a HOLD period, a customer can register a
> domain but the ISP can in not way guarantee that the customer will get the
> domain since anyone else could grab it before the ISP had time to check
> over the application, wait for payment, etc. (unless there is something I
> don't know about - and PLEASE correct me if I am wrong).
>
> My sysadmin argues that squatters may write a script that would keep
> domains on continuous HOLD. I feel that there must be some logical way to
> HOLD domains without the squatter problem. Does anyone have an answer to this?
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.3 : Tue Oct 19 2004 - 23:35:15 EDT