[gnso-rds-pdp-wg] Reminder of rationale for ORD (was Re: Proposed Agreement for Original Registration Date)

[Andrew Sullivan]

Hi,

I just want to remind everyone about why the Original Registration
Date was proposed in the first place.

The idea was that, if you have a domain name that is of interest, you
might not realise that there is something fishy going on in case
someone else has registered the name.  This has happened on several
occasions, where high-value names have somehow lapsed or been deleted
due to subversion of the registrar account.  The idea is, I think,
that an indication of the "original registration date" would allow one
to notice that the name in question might not be the one expected, and
so it is useful for anti-abuse purposes.  (This is of particular
importance for certain kinds of names where one might get automatic
software updates and so on.  Such names have been targets of this sort
of thing in the past.)

I can see that there is some merit in this idea, so while I was
opposed to the ORD on the grounds of data hygiene, the plain indicator
or else the counter seemed like a way to achieve a similar thing.

I am not wedded to the proposal, however, and I will note that once we
start this there are a number of other obvious anti-abuse items we
might invent (including counters of "internal" and "external"
transfers, rapid changes of DNS or contact info, and so on).  I'm a
little concerned about where the matter ends once we start on this
path.

Nevertheless, I think it's important we have before us the reasons why
the ORD was proposed in the first place.  It's clearly a worthy use
case.

Best regards

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
ajs at anvilwalrusden.com