Should rogue domain registrars be isolated?

Andrew Allemann made an interesting point today, at Domain Name Wire, in reference to the popularity of the Chinese domain registrar, Ename, with domain thieves.

“[…] registrars should add an internal security check for transfers to eName. At a minimum, they should enforce the five day transfer waiting period to inspect any transfers of potentially valuable domain names. “

While this method appears to be resolving the problem, it only patches the symptom, temporarily.

A domain registrar that does not actively participate in the process of reclaiming obviously stolen domain names, or which does not offer a contact page for such issues in English, is considered ‘rogue‘ in my book, and should be discredited by ICANN.

Following Andrew’s suggestion, what would happen if techs from Registrar A decided to implement artificial delays, or blocks in transfers to Registrar B, based on any range of arbitrary criteria, or even due to a business decision based on competition? Per ICANN rules, a transfer request that includes a valid authentication code, must proceed.

The problem is deeper than just with Ename, or other registrars that make life difficult for domain owners, whose property gets stolen.

Domain theft should not even be an issue to begin with, and the mandatory use of two-factor authentication must be considered as the very basic defensive mechanism against it.

One step further: revise the domain ownership definition, and issue digital ownership titles for domains, incorporating a foolproof method of locking domains to their owners. Without that certificate of ownership, there would be no change in any way, no inter-registrar push, no transfer out – period.

It’s about time that ICANN spends some of its ample financial resources to redesign the methods that safeguard our digital assets, once and for all.