Requirement to sync and present Registry and Registrar expiration dates via the Registry's RDDS

["Luis E. Muñoz" <lem@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The intention of this comment is to draw attention to the fact that 
implementing the “Registrar Expiration Date I-D” EPP extension to 
pass the Registrar expiration date to the Registry, and requiring 
Registry’s RDDS to display said information side by side is 
detrimental to both Registry and Registrars and provides no benefit to 
any party. On the contrary, said implementation will be a disservice to 
a large portion of the Registrant base. The same could be same about any 
mechanism that relies in trying to synchronize the notion of expiration 
dates of the Registrar and Registry.
The Registrar’s version of the domain’s expiration date typically 
refers to a time that is derived from the business relationship between 
the Registrar and the Registrant. It’s dependent on the Registrar’s 
business rules and in general, is governed and affected by the 
Registrar’s own processes and procedures. This date can be affected by 
factors such as billing, that are opaque outside the context of the 
individual Registrant - Registrar relationship.
The Registry’s version of the domain’s expiration date reflects its 
life cycle within the bounds of the Registry - Registrar relationship. 
The potential rules affecting said life-cycle can be very different from 
the rules in the Registrar - Registrant relationship. An example of this 
is the implementation of automatic domain renewals, whereas the Registry 
will automatically renew the domain name at its expiration. The actual 
renewal at the Registry can happen before the Registrar has charged the 
corresponding fee to the Registrant, leading to a situation where for a 
limited time, both expiration dates will be different. There’s a 
number of other situations arising today that cause both dates to 
diverge, mostly for a limited time or by a small difference.
This is a necessary consequence of the existing business model, where 
the Registry can be seen as a wholesaler while the Registrar behaves 
more like a retailer.
The current ecosystem has controls in place to identify and correct 
these discrepancies as part of the operational practice of both 
registries and registrars. These controls have been incorporated into 
the cost structures of both, Registrars and Registries.
By creating a mechanism that attempts to synchronize data from these two 
systems — governed by different business rules — and forcing the 
Registries to display the inconsistent (to the Registrant) information 
side by side, the current situation is worsened due to the following 
factors:
* For a significant portion of the Registrants reading that information, 
a difference in the expiration dates will be a cause for concern. As a 
consequence, a larger portion of the Registrant base will choose to 
contact the Registrar, the Registry or both in the belief that this is a 
severe issue.
* Registrars will now have to issue EPP transformation commands whenever 
their internal business rules change their version of the domain’s 
expiration date, resulting in additional system load and more complex 
processes to handle errors and retries.
* Likewise, the registries will now have to implement and process a new 
EPP transform command which results in additional system load and more 
complex processing. In addition, legacy WHOIS code — a protocol that 
is supposed to be passing out — will need to be revised in order to 
handle this new information.
* All other factors aside, Registry and Registrar versions of the expiry 
date won’t match precisely at all times, thus generating confusion and 
anxiety on the part of the registrants, over a normal part of the 
process.
Factors above have a cost / business impact over both Registries and 
Registrars and ultimately leads to a scenario where nothing is gained by 
anyone. At best, they cause increased operational costs for all actors 
in the ecosystem, at worst they generate anxiety on the Registrants and 
undermine the confidence they may have on their Registrar.
Luis Muñoz
Director, Registry Operations
____________________________

http://www.uniregistry.link/
2161 San Joaquin Hills Road
Newport Beach, CA 92660

Office +1 949 706 2300 x 4242
lem@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx