ICANN (the organization responsible for regulating the use of domain names over Internet) took us on a roller coaster ride this year, with their new regulations and procedure modifications.
This time, it’s a very important validation procedure that is affected, which could lead to the suspension of your domain name if not completed in time. Indeed, you must now validate the main contact (registrant/owner) of your domain name, no later than 15 days after certain types of interventions, or else it will be suspended and unusable.
Validation Process
The validation process is required in the following situations:
- New domain registration
- Modification to the owner contact (registrant) of your domain name
- Domain name transfer from one registrar to another
The new procedure requires that you validate the main contact (registrant/owner) of your domain name through the following process:
- Within 24 hours of one of the situations mentioned above, you will receive an email requesting to complete the validation.
- Please note that this email will be in 3 languages (French/English/Spanish).
- The message will ask you to click on a URL, which will allow you access a special validation page where you will find your email address and contact information that need to be confirmed.
- Once on the validation page, you will simply need to tick the checkbox and press the confirmation button. Below is an example of what the page looks like.
Email Validation Page
Additional Important Information
The objective behind these ICANN modifications are commendable because they aim to prevent undesired modifications and domain theft. The evolution of domain name management and the continuous effort to reinforce its security protocols, summed with the arrival of new domain names (TLDs), explain the necessity of implementing this new validation step.
Fortunately, this procedure remains quite simple, in addition to only be required once per combination of first name, last name and email address. This means that if you have multiple domain names that are registered with the same contact information, you will only need to perform the verification once.
Two other situations can initiate this validation process:
- Renewal notice email bounces back
- WHOIS validation email bounces back
Regardless of which situation you encounter, you can always modify your contact information from your Customer Hub, in order to make sure you receive the notices at an email address that you use.
Also, in order to ensure that the validation is complete, the notification email is sent 4 times in total during the 15 day period. The first two are sent to the registrant contact alone (the one that needs to be validated), and the two following ones are also sent to the administrative and technical contacts of the domain name.
Should you have any questions, our team is always available to answer you.
