CIRA Registry Rewrite

.CA Registry Service Interruption on October 12th, 2010

Attention .CA Registrants - All .CA registrations, transfers, renewals and administrative updates will be suspended for a 24 hour period beginning Tuesday, October 12, from 9:00 AM EST (6 :00 AM PST) through to Wednesday, October 13 9:00 AM EST (6 :00 AM PST).

Please also note the following:

If your domain is set to expire during the transaction moratorium, CIRA will provide you with a 30-day extension to renew your domain.
Information about the ownership of your .ca domains cannot be changed starting October 5th and continuing until 9:00 am EST October 13th, 2010.
Change Registrant, Change Critical Information, Manual Change of Administrative Contact Email
Seven days prior to the start of migration, October 5, any attempt to request a Change Registrant cannot be processed.
Cancel a New Domain - Three days prior to the start of migration, October 9, any attempt to request a cancellation of a domain cannot be processed.
New Registrants who have not approved the Registrant Agreement - CIRA will continue to allow registration of all new Registrants up the migration date, October 12. Registrants that do not approve the Registrant Agreement before the migration date will receive a subsequent notice from CIRA after the migration with details on how to approve a Registrant Agreement in the new system. Registrants that navigate to the existing Registrant website will be presented with information about how to complete their pending application.

An Overview of the .CA Registry Changes

On October 12th, 2010 the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) will transition to a new system that will more closely resemble that of .COM, .NET and .ORG Registries.This will effectively update and simplify every aspect of the registry from its technological processes to its policies and business practices. As a result of this transition, CIRA Registrant accounts will no longer be required.

Within the current system, interaction between CIRA and the Registrant is common, resulting in long-running transactions. CIRA sends request-for-action emails to the Registrant when processes require Registrant action such as approval (requiring a Registrant to use CIRA-specific credentials), and sends confirmation emails when processes conclude successfully.

When the CIRA registry rewrite takes effect on October 12, 2010 processes that require direct communication between the Registry and the Registrant will be discontinued along with the CIRA Registrant account system.

Reduced Manual Approval Requirements

Under CIRA’s current system, many requests require Registrants to confirm the transaction with CIRA after making the request through Webnames.ca. The Registrant is required to log onto their CIRA account with their username and password and confirm the transaction within a specified period of time in order for the transaction to be effected.

Under CIRA’s current system, the following transactions are not processed immediately because they require the Registrant to confirm the request with CIRA:

Registrar to Registrar transfers
Registrant to Registrant transfers
Critical changes (which include changes to Administrative Contact information, granting of Change without Approval (CWA) Authority, etc)

CIRA’s new EPP-based system very significantly reduces manual approval requirements. The new system processes the following requests immediately once they have been approved via Webnames.ca’s specific approval processes and then submitted to the Registry:

Registrar to Registrar transfers
Registrant to Registrant transfers
Contact Updates (even updates that would be “critical changes” in the current system)
Accordingly, there will no longer be any transfer approvals or critical change approvals. Instead, the Registrant will receive an email notification advising them that a Registry change has occurred.

No CIRA User Account or MCACE Process

The new system eliminates the requirement for Registrant user name and passwords because most scenarios that previously required a Registrant to log onto the CIRA website have been eliminated.

Furthermore, the new system does not support a Manual Change of Administrative Contact Email (MCACE) process because it is no longer necessary for CIRA to send emails to Registrants with their CIRA user name and password.

Special Domain Names

CIRA will continue to support municipal domain name registration through a manual process.

In the new system the registration of a municipal domain must be requested via Webnames.ca manually, who will then make the request to CIRA manually.

CIRA will no longer accept registration requests for non-municipal 3rd and 4th level domain names. Accordingly, CIRA will eliminate the “Registration of Conflicting Domain Name” (RCDN) policy.

CIRA will continue to support existing 3rd and 4th level domain names.

The new system does not support an automated mechanism to request a provincial or restricted domain name. Such a request must be made manually to Webnames.ca who will then contact CIRA.

No Change without Approval (CWA) Authority

CIRA’s “Change without Approval (CWA) Authority” process has been discontinued under the new registry system.

Registrants are no longer required to approve much of what the existing system defined as “critical changes”. Instead, the new system sends notification emails to relevant Registrant and Administrative Contacts of any sensitive requests as they are processed.

Domain Name Registrant Update

In the new system, a Registrar changes the Registrant of a domain name by submitting a domain name update request in which the contact ID assigned to the domain name is changed.

These transactions are no longer called “transfers”. Unlike the existing system, changing the Registrant of a domain name does not extend the registration period - a year is not added.

Registrar to Registrar Transfer

In the new system, the Registrant requests a domain name authorization code (“authInfo”) from the losing Registrar, who must provide it within 5 days of a request and remove any registry domain name transfer prohibition (reset “clientTransferProhibited”). The losing Registrar cannot cancel the request, and there is no pending period.

The Registrant then submits a transfer request to Webnames.ca that includes the domain name and the associated domain authInfo. The Registrant will also be prompted to create profiles for the domain name Registrant and Administrative Contacts.

A successful Registrar to Registrar transfer request is processed immediately; the domain name registration is extended by a year (or more) only if the domain name registration is not already at the .CA 10 year maximum.

A minimum 1-year renewal fee is charged even if the domain name registration is already at the 10-year maximum.

CIRA’s privacy policies prohibit access to or transfer of contact data between Registrars.

Registrant Name Change

Like the existing system, the new system does not permit a Registrar to update the name of the contact used in the role of the Registrant for a domain name. This restriction is intended to mitigate domain hijacking risk. Contact fields can continue to be updated - only the name of the Contact cannot be changed. A Registrant contact name update can only be accomplished by a request to CIRA Registration Support (manually via Webnames.ca).

Auto-renewal and Domain Name Deletion

CIRA supports a maximum 45-day Auto-renew Grace Period. For Webnames.ca, if a domain renewal is not completed within 35 days of the domain renewal date, then a Delete command will be sent to the Registry, and the domain will enter its 30-day Redemption period. Domain Redemptions must be requested manually through Webnames.ca Support.

Notification Emails

The new system sends the following notification emails to the Registrant and the Administrative Contact:

Member solicitation upon domain name activation
Domain create, when Registrant has signed the CIRA Registrant Agreement
Contact update, only when it changes:
Registrant email
Administrative contact name and/or email
Domain update, only when it changes:
Registrant name and/or email
Administrative contact name and/or email
Domain transfer
Domain deletion

No other business processes trigger an automated system email to be sent during the normal course of registering or managing a domain name.

Information regarding Registrar co-branding of Registrant notification emails is provided in the .CA Registry Guide for Registrars.

To-Be-Released (TBR) Integration

The TBR auction system is not changing in any significant way; the same policies and procedures remain in place. Domains which are not redeemed during their 30-day Redemption Period will be added to the TBR list.

More Information

More information about the .CA registry rewrite and how it will affect .CA domain names holders is available at the links below:

CIRA to redesign .CA registry system for improved customer experience
http://www.cira.ca/2010-CA-Registry-Redesign/

CIRA Registry Rewrite FAQs
http://www.cira.ca/ca-faq-10-12/