Admin Contact vs Registrant

Which is most important

[bobriggs]

In another post I've mentioned that I had a dispute about the admin contact - I'm just a third party in this and the domain owner wanted me to be admin contact so that I could handle some transfers for him; basically he trusts me.

I have another client that wanted the same thing. I ran a whois, found the technical contact for the registrant, got a phone number, called, and requested a change in the administrative contact to be me. The person I talked to did not know me from Adam. I told him the new data - my email address, name, etc. Not 5 seconds later he asked me to run a new whois and it had been changed.

I realize that administrative contact has a large amount of power. Can Administrative contact change registrant info? If the answer is yes, then you could hijack somebody's domain with a phone call (probably only if the registrar was the one I was talking about). If no, surely you could change dns info and hijack someone's domain, right? Or wrong?

I'm really kind of new to domain transfers, registrations, registrars, etc., basically I'm one of those who knows just enough to be dangerous. Could someone give an explanation of the hierarchy involved, who can do what, and maybe some legal mumbo jumbo associated with it?

[toolman]

In summary:

Use a reseller like BulkRegister or the like. Always make yourself all three roles and use a throw away email like Hotmail. The master account you opened has the authority to make changes and the email showing in whois has nothing to do with it...no one will really know who owns the domain, therefore it would be very difficult to hack.

I really don't understand why anyone uses VeriSol.

[bobriggs]

Sorry if I'm still a little confused.

As soon as the contact is a throw-away email account - (AND THEN YOU THROW IT AWAY), you've lost all ability to do business by email. I have one domain that I guess I'm going to have to handle by fax because the email address of the admin is no longer valid.

Supposing that I do realize at some point how to do this domain registration thing. How does this help me? And I'm still waiting to get a post about the authority and chain of command if you will. Who can change what? Admin, Who/What is the registrant?

I kind of see your point about using a bulk reseller, and the throw-away email address. I don't seem to have that option with the registrars that I'm dealing with - Or maybe I don't know how to do it.

I thought I knew a bunch about domain registrations, then I'd look at a whois and wonder how they kept that stuff out.

Am I just doing something fundamentally wrong?

[toolman]

>>>Am I just doing something fundamentally wrong?

If you're wanting to manage domains for your business....follow the pattern I laid out for you above. It will become more clear as you work through it.

>>>>And I'm still waiting to get a post about the authority and chain of command if you will

Any one of the three can reply to an authentication email and process the request. The key is having the account info neccesary to initiate the request to send out the emails. The registrant will have that info for you.

[bobriggs]

Thanks, I'm going to try.

OK if I come back and ask for some more advice here? On most of these domains I have admin privileges...this seems to me to be the best way to change anything.

I have a throw-away domain I can kind of play with. Best way to learn is to do it yourself.

BTW, any comments on the fact that I could get admin privileges with a phone call?

[oilman]

bob - I'm getting the feeling that you are making this a little more complicated than you need to. When you register a domain simply fill in all the blanks with the same info for Admin, Billing, and Tech.

Better yet - register with someone that allows you to modify that data however you want through some kind of control panel. Then you can simply login anytime and change anything you want. I use a registrat that resells for opensrs.org. I can change all my info, including DNS servers, on a whim.

[bobriggs]

Thanks oilman, I have done that and I have control over a lot of domains.

My question was not how to do it. I can do anything that my registrar will let me do - Once I'm admin.

Original questions:
..Can Administrative contact change registrant info?
..any comments on the fact that I could get admin privileges with a phone call?
..Could someone give an explanation of the hierarchy involved? (ie what can tech contact change?)

[toolman]

>>>Can Administrative contact change registrant info?

Yes

>>>>any comments on the fact that I could get admin privileges with a phone call?

Scary.

>>>Could someone give an explanation of the hierarchy involved? (ie what can tech contact change?)

Any of the three can reply and make changes via the email authentication form.

[bobriggs]

toolman, thanks. First, really, I'm not trying to be flippant about this. But from the answers you've given me, I could take answer #3 (although you seem to be vague on this point - eg I can reply, but is it legal? - You're saying as tech contact I could reply to the email form and change the admin?), change myself to admin, then from answer #1, usurp all powers and then become the registrant, the legal owner of the domain. Am I reading this right?

Sorry if I sound stupid about this, but I still don't understand. Most of the stuff I've seen on the internet is only lawman-speak (no offense lawman).

[toolman]

All I can gather is that you're trying to transfer a domain from Netsol to another place. In order to do this only 1 of the 3 handles has to reply to the email to do it. That's it.

When you get done with them...forget about them and get in with a company that allows more flexibility and doesn't require $199 to change the registrant name...thats ridiculous.