Quoting Bruce Tonkin on Wednesday December 03, 2003:
| 
| Yes that is correct.  I don't see that as a problem however.  Most
| registration processes are based on some assumptions that the
| information given is correct (including tax returns).  Registrars do
| provide some objective checks - such as whether the ACN or ABN number is
| valid.  In this case the registrant asserted that the domain name was
| related to their business.   At the time of the registration, it was
| reasonable to accept this assertion.  E.g the words "moon", "jet" and
| "star" to have some common themes.
| 
| If you are proposing that registrars visit and interview each registrant
| - that is very onerous and does not apply to most registration processes
| intended for high volume applications. 

I am not implying registrars need to do this. To take the tax return
analogy - people assert things but they are generally checked for
obvious errors and audits are conducted. There is a penalty if you fail
compliance.

But there needs to be compliance testing - complaints driven, random
selection, or some other methodology. But with no, or weak, followup all
the incentive is to not follow the rules as the risks are so low that
anything adverse will happen.

| I think in this instance such words as "abuse" and "stripping" of the
| domain seem a bit extreme.

In this instance maybe so. It is not clear to me whether this is just an
incompetent web designer who made their first mistake, whether it was
calculated move due to the nature of the client (which I find highly
objectionable), or maybe every client of this company is registered to
web designer. Either way remedial action must be taken.

| Unfortunately there is a lack of understanding in the wider community
| (as compared to members of the DNS list) about the terms used in the
| industry - such as registrant as the legal holder of the domain name
| licence, and admin, tech and billing as contacts that may refer to an
| agent, web design company, web hosting company etc.   There have been

Web designers and ISPs should be educated and I feel in some ways it is
incumbent on them to know about these things as "experts" in their
field. Simple things like not reading the contract for a domain is no
excuse for breaching the rules, especially if you are offering it as a
professional service to others. 

I would hazard a guess that there are still companies systematically
registering on behalf of the real entities but not placing the real
entities as the registrant. With weak or non existant "close connection"
tests, there must be some sort of auditing or checking to determine
patterns. If it was an honest mistake, it can be corrected quickly,
but if it happens again or bad-faith is clear, then there should be
penalties.

kim