ICANN’s implementation of the Expired Registration Recovery Policy (ERRP), comes into effect for all Generic Top-level Domains (gTLDs) from August 31st, 2013. To ensure full compliance with this policy, Our Registrars, you and all your sub-resellers are obligated to make changes to certain processes and Terms of Use. The major changes have been highlighted here, please read on to understand the impact of these changes.
I. Compulsory communication must be sent to Registrants before and upon domain name expiry.
If your customers are set to receive the default renewal reminder emails sent by the system, then you need not do anything. Starting August 31st, 2013, the same emails will also be sent to the Registrant contact, in accordance with the policy.
If you’ve switched off the renewal reminder emails for your customers, a new set of emails to be sent to Registrants will be introduced by the system.
The Registrant contact for expiring domain names will receive renewal reminders 30 days and 7 days before expiry. A third reminder will also be sent immediately after the domain name expires.
These emails are mandatory, and cannot be turned off. However, you will be able to customize the content of these emails from your control panel.
NOTE: The customization interface for emails sent to Registrant contacts of expiring domain names will be available in your control panel under ‘Settings >> System Notifications >> Emails’ from August 15th, 2013. Please ensure that you customize these emails if needed, by August 31st.
II. Renewal/Restoration pricing and information about Expiry reminders must be displayed on Registrar and Resellers’ websites.
If you’re using Supersite, the pricing page will automatically be updated with the necessary information about Restoration fees and Expiry reminder processes.
If your customers are registering domain names through your own external website, you must ensure that information about Renewal and Restoration pricing is clearly displayed on your website. Additionally, you must also display instructions describing the manner in which Registrants will be notified about domain name expiry and renewal.
III. Registrar Registrant Agreement will be updated with Renewal/Restoration pricing links and Expiry reminder information.
The Registrar Registrant Agreement will be updated with information about the manner in which domain name expiry notifications and Renewal reminders will be sent to the Registrant.
The agreement will also carry a link to the Resellers’ Supersite pricing page, to comply with the policy.
If your customers are registering domain names through your own external website, you must ensure that they accept the terms of the Registrar Registrant Agreement at the time of registering their domain name.
NOTE: The Reseller Master Agreement will be modified to include the above aspects among the Reseller’s obligations. The new terms will come into effect from August 31st, 2013 and will be presented on our website and in the Reseller Control Panel from August 15th, 2013. You and your Sub-Resellers must ensure compliance by the effective date.
Additional Information:
You can refer to the complete ICANN ERRP announcement here – http://www.icann.org/en/resources/registrars/consensus-policies/errp
The policy only affects generic top-level domain names (gTLDs) like .COM, .NET, .ORG etc., whereas country-code TLDs such as .IN, .UK etc. aren’t affected by this policy.
