Registrars and Registries Operate Under Specific Rules
Domain registrars and registries operate under contractual obligations to ICANN and under their own published policies governing transfers, locks, dispute resolution, and account security. When a registrant alleges that a registrar failed to prevent an unauthorized transfer, ignored a lock request, or mishandled a dispute, the question of liability often turns on whether the registrar's conduct matched its own stated policies and industry-standard practice.
These disputes often hinge on documentation the registrar itself controls — support tickets, lock status logs, and internal transfer records — which makes early, targeted discovery requests particularly important in cases where a registrar's conduct is at issue.
Areas of Evaluation
Bill's evaluation typically focuses on the following areas, comparing the registrar's documented conduct against its own published policies and against how comparable registrars generally handle the same situations.
- Whether registrar transfer procedures complied with ICANN's Transfer Policy
- Whether registry-level protections, such as registry locks, were available and properly applied
- Communication records between the registrant and the registrar around the disputed event
- Comparison to how similarly situated registrars typically handle equivalent requests
Because registrars are themselves subject to ICANN accreditation requirements, their internal policies and support records are frequently more thorough than a registrant would expect, provided the right requests are made early enough in the discovery process to preserve them.