Subject: [ire] RGP status data

From: Christopher Browne <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2013 14:55:16 -0500

Version 01 of the arias/noguchi draft introduced the
<rdeDomain:rgpStatus> element, which
extracts the registry grace period status values defined in RFC 3915.

Some of our folks have been questioning whether these statuses are of
much use; the initial
concerns were rather implementation-specific, but after further
reflection, I am wondering if
<rdeDomain:rgpStatus> is of any actual practical use.

For instance, consider the "addPeriod" value, which, according to
3915, indicates:

      This grace period is provided after the initial
      registration of a domain name.  If the domain name is deleted by
      the registrar during this period, the registry provides a credit
      to the registrar for the cost of the registration.

In order for addPeriod to be of any real use, there are *three* things
that need to be
known:
a) That it's present (which the IRE draft captures), but also
b) What its duration is to be, that is, when should the status expire, and
c) How much was the cost of the registration that is to be refunded.

The IRE draft captures neither the temporal information nor the cost, which
seems to seriously undermine the value of having "addPeriod" altogether.
The same issue applies in much the same way to autorenewPeriod,
renewPeriod and transferPeriod.

It's not quite the same for redemptionPeriod, pendingRestore, and
pendingDelete; for those RGP statuses, there is no amount to be refunded,
but there is still some need for a date indicating when those statuses are
intended to expire.

In view that there is nothing in the existing draft indicating any sort of
"billing transaction" stream, I would expect that it's pretty intentional not
to have costs captured in escrow.  This suggests that addPeriod,
autorenewPeriod,  renewPeriod, and transferPeriod are of limited use,
and I'd be favorably inclined to the argument that those RGP statuses
aren't worth reporting, as a result.

For the redemptionPeriod, pendingRestore, and pendignDelete RGP
statuses, I'd think that, for them to be useful, the <rdeDomain:rgpStatus>
element would need to have an attribute added indicating the expiry date
of those statuses.

Has anyone else noticed or been concerned by this issue?

---

From: Francisco Obispo <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2013 12:20:55 -0800

Hi Christopher,

My response below:

> c) How much was the cost of the registration that is to be refunded.

Mapping Policy is something that is not currently part of any document that we're dealing with, I believe the issue has been raised in the past. Most likely, this is an issue that will have to be resolved using an out-of-band mechanism.

The duration of those periods, are usually bound to the various dates that exist on EPP objets: created_date, expiry_date, etc. So perhaps it would be useful to have some sort of "manifest" with the set of policies that the registry implements, so that a consuming EBERO could maintain the status quo.

> aren't worth reporting, as a result.

They are worth reporting, because it's part of the domain lifecycle, the EBERO or consumer of this data will have to know how to apply policy to the information being imported to the registry.

> element would need to have an attribute added indicating the expiry date

Those values usually depend on the EPP object dates (creation, expiry, etc.)

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Francisco Obispo 
Director of Applications and Services - ISC
email: [email-masked]
Phone: +1 650 423 1374 || INOC-DBA *3557* NOC
PGP KeyID = B38DB1BE

---

From: James Mitchell <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2013 10:57:07 +1100

Response inline below.

>Has anyone else noticed or been concerned by this issue?

Consider a 7-day pendingRestore period gives the registrar 7 days to
provide a restore report before a domain name transitions to a new
redemptionPeriod. Should the registry be non-operational for three days
during transition to an EBERO, are those three days then lost to the
registrar, giving at least 4 days for registrars to provide a restore
report? I would suggest this may be considered incorrect from a registrars
point of view. Since the EBERO operates without charging money however
this may be of no concern as the registrar could issue another restore
request.

Also, consider transfers pending at the time of transition to an EBERO.
Not giving the losing registrar the full 5 days to reject the transfer may
be against the letter/spirit of the IRTP and lead to transfer disputes.

I'm not too concerned with the absence of this information, however more
information would allow the EBERO to make better decisions. We plan to
include the period expiration date in the status element content. If
someone restoring a registry wants to make use of this information then it
will be available. I would have preferred date information was included in
the RGP RFC however.

James