24/03/2003 

An end to the frustrating, illogical and frequently abused system of transferring domain names between registrars may finally arrive this week at the ICANN meeting in Rio de Janeiro. 

In meetings today and a council tomorrow, a report enticingly named "Policies and Processes for Gaining and Losing Registrars" will seek to bring some common-sense to the system of moving a domain from one registrar to another. 

If adopted - and it remains an "if" - competition in the market for global top-level domains such as .com, .org and .biz will receive a huge boost and domain owners will be granted rights they have long been denied. 

The report should ensure that domain registrars will no longer be able to abuse the system and prevent paying customers' efforts to move to a cheaper competitor. The most important phrase in the report states that the transfer process "should be easy, fluid, transparent and inexpensive". 

Details at: http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/29911.html