On July 1st, 2013, you were sent the first notice of the mandated new policy for Registrars called the Expired Registration Recovery Policy (ERRP) issued by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names & Numbers (ICANN) for gTLDs (ccTLDs are not affected). Again, the new ERRP policy not only requires registrars and resellers to understand its details, but also requires registrars and resellers to take action to fully comply with the regulation. MOST IMPORTANTLY, HEXONET IS OBLIGATED TO CHANGE ITS TERMS OF USE, since its ICANN Accredited Registrar, 1API GmbH, IS ALSO CHANGING its terms of use to be inline with the new ERRP policy, which all goes into effect August 31, 2013.
ERRP Requirements:
1. Communication with every Registrant of a domain before and after a domain name's expiration date is now mandatory:
Compliance Made Easy. Both Pre-Expiry and Post-Expiry notices must be sent out and addressed by the Registrar of Record; however, Reseller can OPTIONALLY brand these emails as follows.
Login to the Control Panel and navigate to MANAGE ACCOUNT > MY SETTINGS > DOMAIN SETTINGS > ERRP EMAIL SETTINGS
- Company Name - provide the company name to be used in the email
- Telephone Number - for a support or a customer service number
- Support Email Address - for a direct email link to your support
- Legal URL - a link to your Terms of Use or another legal page
IMPORTANT CHANGE: The "FROM" Email-address option is no longer available as the email must be sent out and addressed by the Registrar of Record according to the ICANN policy. Our apologies for this oversight.
Resellers who choose not to configure any of the optionally branding fields, your clients will see a generic email without names, information or links.
2. Clearly display and provide Renewal and Restoration information on the Reseller's website, including information about renewal notices and how notices will be delivered:
Compliance Made Easy. Add similar wording, with proper URLs, in the Reseller's own Terms of Use
- Renewal Notices. Approximately one month prior to the expiration date of a domain name, the registrant will be emailed an expiration notice to the registrant's email address. Subsequently, approximately one week prior to the expiration date of a domain name, a second notice will be emailed to the registrant's email address. And if a domain is not renewed, within five (5) days of a domain name's expiration date, the registrant will be emailed a third notice stating the domain name has expired.
- Renewal and Restore Fees. The fees associated with renewing gTLDs are located on the Reseller's website at URL: <<http://myresellersite.com/fees>>
3. Clearly display and provide Registrants renewal pricing, restore pricing (Renewal Grace Period (RGP)) fees and how to access renewal/restore information
Compliance Made Easy. Display renewal and restore pricing on the Reseller's website and in Reseller's registration agreement
Clearly displayed fees on your website and a link to these fees must be included in your registration agreements (i.e. a link in your terms of use back to your pricing page)
HEXONET's Terms of Use Notice and Platform Period Changes:
The following changes to Finalization and Accounting Periods, as well as, the Terms of Use modifications will go into effective August 31, 2013.
- Finalization and Accounting Period Change - Effect on domains set to AUTORENEW only. On September 1, 2013, the Finalization and Accounting Period are changing for all gTLDs (.COM, .NET, etc.).
- Finalization Period is changing from +44 days to +1 day (billed and paid domain renewals are finalized 1 day after the expiration date of the domain; domains deleted after the finalization date cannot be refunded).
- Accounting Period is changing from 0 to -5 days for all gTLDs expiring after September 1, 2013 (meaning billing for auto-renewals are processed 5 days prior to the expiration date of the domain)
- Failure Period (+44 days) for gTLDs set to AUTODELETE/AUTOEXPIRE remain unchanged. In order to fully comply with the ERRP policy, the DNS resolution for all gTLDs set to AUTOEXPIRE/AUTODELETE will be interrupted for the duration of 8 consecutive days, 36 days after expiration (Failure Period +44).
- Right to Stop Domain Name Resolution, Change Nameservers, or Change WHOIS Contact Information. Immediately following the expiration date and before the deletion of a domain name, HEXONET at its sole discretion may stop resolution of a domain, change the nameservers and/or change the WHOIS contact information, unless the domain is renewed, in which case the domain name's prior nameserver and/or WHOIS contact information will be restored and the domain name will be updated to resolve again.
- Redemption Grace Period. The mandatory "RGP" or Redemption Grace Period, typically starting between 30 days and 44 days after the expiration date of domain, is only available if a domain is deleted.
The new terms will be effective August 31, 2013, and all HEXONET resellers will need to be in compliance. Resellers at a minimum need to review the new Terms of Use and update their websites with the provided legal text. Lastly, if Resellers want to their own branded email address for these notices going out to your customers, please login to the Control Panel to configure the ERRRP notification setting before August 31, 2013.
For more information or to see some FAQs on ERRP please visit our support wiki at https://wiki.hexonet.net/index.php/ERRP. If you have any questions or need further assistance, please contact [email protected].