Domain Thief...this guy is trying to steal one of my domains

[plateman]

well reading all this I emailed my domain registar to ask about how to lock mine and here's what they said, I will not say who they are and a clue - they are expensive..

Dear marc
Thank you for conatcting....

We do not have the "lock" facility available to domain name holders at present as the new transfer policy is so secure that Lock is now more of a perceived need than an actual requirement


There has been some confusion regarding the New ICANN Transfer Registrar Policy that will be officially implemented by the registrar community on 12 November 2004.


Despite reports to the contrary, the new Policy will have a positive impact on registrants and registrars which follow the new Policy, by clarifying and improving the Registrar Transfer process. It makes no other substantial changes.

The new Policy now enforces the spirit of the original Registrar Transfer process by providing explicit guidelines on matters that have been of concern in the past to the Registrar and Registrant community, and which have restricted Registrants ability to transfer their domain names between Registrars. It clearly dictates what Registrars can and cannot do, and prohibits Registrars from practices which may have occurred in the past in which Registrants were caused confusion.


Under the new transfer policy, Registrants will be safer and will have greater freedom to transfer their domains to any ICANN-accredited registrar of their choice.



The new Policy ( http://www.icann.org/transfers/policy-12jul04.htm ) outlines that:


i. All registrars must only use a clear standardized form of authorization

as outlined by ICANN to obtain the express consent of the registrant prior to initiating a transfer. Authorisation forms are not to contain any other text not related to the actual transfer request.


Benefit- This means that Registrars or their agents can no longer solicit transfers by sending confusing, deceptive or intentionally misleading emails to Registrants, which will assist in preventing customers from making uninformed decisions.



ii. The administrative contact remains as the authorising entity and

Registrars cannot initiate a transfer unless they have received explicit approval, either electronically from the same or by a physical process which involves certified identification.


Benefit- Registrants will be safer from any risk of having their domains transferred to another registrar without their explicit consent.



iii. The new policy prohibits Registrars from denying outgoing transfers

on the basis of a registrant's alleged failure to "double-confirm" the transfer. This process is commonly referred to as 'Auto-knacking'.


Benefit- The new policy will prohibit Registrars from denying outgoing transfers on the basis of a Registrant's alleged failure to "double- confirm" the transfer. Under the old policy, some transfer requests that had already been authenticated by the gaining Registrar were denied by the losing Registrar if technical problems, spam filters, language difficulties or other issues resulted in a Registrant not responding to a secondary confirmation e-mail from the losing Registrar. Losing Registrars will still be able to send a message to a Registrant that has authorized an outgoing transfer, but a clear and concise standardized form of message must be used, and the Registrar will not be allowed to deny the transfer if a response is not received from the Registrant.



iv. The new transfer policy includes a robust dispute resolution policy

for resolving disputes between Registrars involving alleged violations of the policy. As part of this mechanism, registries will be implementing a "transfer undo" functionality in order to be able to efficiently reverse any transfers initiated in violation of the policy.


Benefit- If there is dispute, it will be dealt with using appropriate processes and if necessary by independent arbitration.

Regards