ICANN's new rules for domain registrants require you to verify an email address

Competitor registrar here. This is actually required by the new 2013 ICANN contract. Not all registrars are on the new contract yet, but those that have already signed are required to start following it as of January.<p>Link: <a href="http://www.icann.org/en/resources/registrars/raa/approved-with-specs-27jun13-en.htm#whois-accuracy" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.icann.org&#x2F;en&#x2F;resources&#x2F;registrars&#x2F;raa&#x2F;approved-wi...</a><p>You can thank the law enforcement lobby and ICANN wanting to keep them happy. All of us registrars fought hard against it for a number of obvious reasons, but they went forward with it anyway.<p>Almost all registrars will be on the new contract soon if they already aren&#x27;t because ICANN made it a requirement to be able to sell the new GTLDs. This is now going to be a normal part of owning a domain name.

Registrar here.<p>Here is the applicable rules. As nitinag pointed out this only is for registrar&#x27;s who have signed the 2013 RAA. Registrars still under the 2009 RAA are not bound by this. (At some point they will have to sign the new RAA and they will right away if they want to sell (as was pointed out) the new f TLDs.<p><a href="http://www.icann.org/en/resources/registrars/raa/approved-with-specs-27jun13-en.htm#whois-accuracy" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.icann.org&#x2F;en&#x2F;resources&#x2F;registrars&#x2F;raa&#x2F;approved-wi...</a><p>While I can&#x27;t speak for what other registrars will be doing these ICANN policies in the past tend to leave plenty of wiggle room and the ability to game the system (by registrars) if they want to.<p>Specifically:<p>&quot;In either case, if Registrar does not receive an affirmative response from the Registered Name Holder, Registrar shall either verify the applicable contact information manually or suspend the registration, until such time as Registrar has verified the applicable contact information. If Registrar does not receive an affirmative response from the Account Holder, Registrar shall verify the applicable contact information manually, but is not required to suspend any registration.&quot;

To quote the source: ====================<p>Verify: the email address of the Registered Name Holder (and, if different, the Account Holder) by sending an email requiring an affirmative response through a tool-based authentication method such as providing a unique code that must be returned in a manner designated by the Registrar, or<p>the telephone number of the Registered Name Holder (and, if different, the Account Holder) by either (A) calling or sending an SMS to the Registered Name Holder&#x27;s telephone number providing a unique code that must be returned in a manner designated by the Registrar, or (B) calling the Registered Name Holder&#x27;s telephone number and requiring the Registered Name Holder to provide a unique code that was sent to the Registered Name Holder via web, email or postal mail.<p>In either case, if Registrar does not receive an affirmative response from the Registered Name Holder, Registrar shall either verify the applicable contact information manually or suspend the registration, until such time as Registrar has verified the applicable contact information. If Registrar does not receive an affirmative response from the Account Holder, Registrar shall verify the applicable contact information manually, but is not required to suspend any registration. ====================<p>So there are other methods that ICANN outlines in order to verify the account holder information to activate the domain, not _just_ an email address like the article states.

I already get all sorts of emails sent to the address listed on whois. Most, if not all, are outright scams. So now one of those will actually be genuine?<p>But which one?

We need decentralized DNS (like Namecoin) systems. Properly implemented cryptography and decentralization is the only hope for the free internet to remain free.

How will this affect registrars that offer to hide your email address behind a randomly generated and periodically rotated address that forwards to your own?<p>For example, NameCheap&#x27; WhoisGuard service has an option to rotate the email address every 30 days. If I subscribe to a service like that, will I have to verify the randomly generated address every time it is rotated?

This doesn&#x27;t look like verifying contact <i>details</i>.<p>It looks like verifying a contact <i>email address</i>, which is nothing new and a routine with most registrars anyways.

One other has clarified, and it&#x27;s important: Email is pseudonymous, and that&#x27;s all that is required. Frustrating, but not quite as speech-quelling as addresses and phone numbers.<p>Oh, and you bought that domain with a credit card.

Are these formal ICANN rule-changes, or just how iwantmyname is choosing to enforce the verification aspect of domain ownership? Seems like what they&#x27;re saying they may do is replace your domain with some lead-generation landing-page similar to what many domain registrars do upon registering a new domain prior to modifying the DNS settings.

I blame Google for this. Yes, there were others who pushed &quot;real name policies&quot; before, but it wasn&#x27;t until Google when they <i>really</i> forced people to do it, and now that they got away with it, others are taking the example from them, and doing the same.

Can the registrars send an automatic reply on behalf of their customers?

How will this affect current domain squatters? Will they be required to follow this when they renew these domains? Or is this just for new registrations moving forward?

ICANN needs to lower their price per domain. I don &#x27;t think they originally thought so many people would buy a domain? Or, just got greedy?

But isn&#x27;t it still possible to use an address at the newly-registered domain? And what&#x27;s the point then? Or, if not, how broken is that?

Is there a way to register a domain name completely anonymously?

What would it take to have a p2p DNS?

Why are so many of you upset by this?

15 days. I am literally stunned. so if you go to long holiday you might come back and your site is .. banned. way to go on free speech.