[registrars] RE: Registrar Approval of Variable Accreditation Fee for 2003-2004

[Donny Simonton]

The biggest problem we have found is getting the address information from
all of the different countries to be able to have a 100% correct address
verification system.  In the US and Canada and I'm sure other countries you
can buy address information for a few thousand a year.  Then you have to buy
the phone numbers from somebody else, Neustar if I remember correctly.  That
would work fine for US and Canada.

But most of our fraud is not in the US or Canada, it's in other countries
that you are not able to get the address information from their postal
service.  And how would you verify this address anyway?  This is a real
address of one of our customers.  
"120 meters past McDonald's on Rue Flat Road".

Yes and it's valid, because a hotel that is also on the same street is 240
meters past McDonald's.

So address and phone number verification is a great idea, we spent almost 2
months working on it, then you get outside the US and Canada and you run
into all kinds of issues with trying to verify the address and phone number.
Good in theory, not good in practice.

Donny

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-registrars at gnso.icann.org [mailto:owner-
> registrars at gnso.icann.org] On Behalf Of Rick Wesson
> Sent: Wednesday, September 03, 2003 9:53 AM
> To: Elana Broitman
> Cc: Registrars List
> Subject: RE: [registrars] RE: Registrar Approval of Variable Accreditation
> Fee for 2003-2004
> 
> 
> 
> Elana,
> 
> do you have a link to information about the hearing?
> 
> my $.02...
> 
> doing registrant validation on signup cuts down fraud so if one reviews
> the amount of chargebacks one gets verses the cost of whois accuracy
> requirements performing such validation actually saves us more in
> chargebacks than costs us in performing the validation.
> 
> We allow just about anything through the signup process and just don't
> process the fraudulent or highly supcious applications.
> 
> We are working on more elaborate techniques to handle bounces and staging
> other automated means of communication such as: if email bounces and we
> have a fax, send a fax, if the fax bounces send a postcard, if all
> attempts bounce note the information is bad and lock the account with a
> note that will require additional information if the registrant comes to
> renew the domain.
> 
> We could get even more elaborate by identifying telephone numbers that are
> mobile numbers and sending an SMS message but we don't have the volume of
> registrations to make that interesting yet.
> 
> best,
> 
> -rick
> 
> 
> On Wed, 3 Sep 2003, Elana Broitman wrote:
> 
> > On the same note, I am again going out to everyone with a request for
> > some data (even merely anecdotal) on how you comply with whois
> > accuracy requirements in the RAA and cost of doing so.  This is very
> > important to provide before tomorrow's Congressional hearing in order
> > help protect us from "unfunded mandates" based on incomplete
> > information supplied by interest groups pushing for more Whois
> > verification and availability.
> >
> > Thanks
> >
> > Elana Broitman
> 
>