Should Afternic use txt record verification - Poll

[Ja Kai]

I think Joe Styler is providing talking points because NOT providing txt record verification, makes his and godaddy's job easier and more profitable - as it won't piss off HUGE and others. Well, lets take a poll - I believe @Joe Styler is wrong here. Basing his responses NOT on facts.

OK, should text verification be used at Afternic?

 

[Joe Styler]

I think Joe Styler is providing talking points because NOT providing txt record verification, makes his and godaddy's job easier and more profitable - as it won't p*ss off HUGE and others. Well, lets take a poll - I believe @Joe Styler is wrong here. Basing his responses NOT on facts.

OK, should text verification be used at Afternic?

I think you should read my whole response. txt records are in the plans but not as a stand alone option.

 

[Ja Kai]

I think you should read my whole response. txt records are in the plans but not as a stand alone option.

With all respect, I have read many of your responses regarding this (over many months). I could clip, but i won't. You have said MANY times that namepro's members disapproval of the idea was a primary factor when deciding to add to the platform.

 

[Ja Kai]

With all respect, I have read many of your responses regarding this (over many months). I could clip, but i won't. You have said MANY times that namepro's members disapproval of the idea was a primary factor when deciding to add to the platform.

btw - please vote

 

[Joe Styler]

That is still true and addressed in my response.

 

[Ja Kai]

That is still true and addressed in my response.

Sounds good. I just want you to have definitive Namepros vote - so you wont misconstrue the true pulse of the tribe.

 

[Joe Styler]

You should just read my response here https://www.namepros.com/threads/ta...ain-ownership-lol.1179655/page-2#post-7664091 The poll doesn't matter. We already have plans to redo the verification system including txt records, but not only them.

 

[Ja Kai]

You should just read my response here https://www.namepros.com/threads/ta...ain-ownership-lol.1179655/page-2#post-7664091 The poll doesn't matter. We already have plans to redo the verification system including txt records, but not only them.

Why doesn't the poll matter? Because it will possibly refute what you have been saying for the last year? I, for one, am not afraid of facts and trends - they are the basis for all my decisions going forward.

 

[Joe Styler]

It doesn't matter because we are already planning on using txt records. So asking if we should use it doesn't matter. We are planning on giving multiple options for verification. This solves for both use cases above, using them or not using them. So if you want to use them great and if you don't we will have an option for that too. So no matter which way you answer the poll you are taken care of. I don't think you are reading or understanding my response and I have already answered this enough times for one day.

 

[Ja Kai]

It doesn't matter because we are already planning on using txt records. So asking if we should use it doesn't matter. We are planning on giving multiple options for verification. This solves for both use cases above, using them or not using them. So if you want to use them great and if you don't we will have an option for that too. So no matter which way you answer the poll you are taken care of. I don't think you are reading or understanding my response and I have already answered this enough times for one day.

I'm just drawing attention to the misrepresentation of facts that is used to bolster GD agenda - catering to the HUGE folks. That's all. Your arguments over the last year have been incorrect. I believe premised only on the wishes of your whale clients.

JUST like the whole API GD sniping issue.

 

[Ja Kai]

.

 

[tonyk2000]

Afternic should require either:
- nameservers pointing to afternic dns
OR
- txt records in DNS

Always. During the domain lifetime (not only initially). Most notably, for all customers - including API customers.

However, taking in account a mistaken trust to API customers, it is unlikely that such a requirement would apply to them. It is unfortunate. If so, implementing TXT/DNS verification only for regular retail customers will have no sense, as most ownership conflicts are caused by API customers such as hugedomains...

Yes, I mean always. Initial verification is not enough. Folks, including api customers, frequently fail to delete the domains which are expired or sold elsewhere.

 

[7363824]

It doesn't matter because we are already planning on using txt records. So asking if we should use it doesn't matter. We are planning on giving multiple options for verification. This solves for both use cases above, using them or not using them. So if you want to use them great and if you don't we will have an option for that too. So no matter which way you answer the poll you are taken care of. I don't think you are reading or understanding my response and I have already answered this enough times for one day.

I think the problems stems from the fact that we all know the current verification system is broken but it does not appear to have had a high enough priority for your team to implement. This has been brought up for how long now? And yes we all know that no one method is a silver bullet that will work for everyone everytime but I think the frustration has stem from the fact that there seems to be no movement on this over time.

 

[Ja Kai]

I think the problems stems from the fact that we all know the current verification system is broken but it does not appear to have had a high enough priority for your team to implement. This has been brought up for how long now? And yes we all know that no one method is a silver bullet that will work for everyone everytime but I think the frustration has stem from the fact that there seems to be no movement on this over time.

And excuses from Joe saying that is not what NP people want. Well, based on the early poll results, that is EXACTLY what they want and have wanted for the last year as GD ignored the appeals.

 

[Ja Kai]

How is this in the wrong forum?

 

[Kassey Lee]

How about using an additional server which is unique to each account? Is it DAN or another marketplace which recently announced such plan?

 

[karmaco]

I voted yes. Some sort of verification is long overdue just like everything else GD. I get at least 1 notification a month that some fraudster is trying to add my name to Afternic fast transfer. This has been going on for years.

All registrars need to have a refuse the fast transfer in place too. As of now only NameSilo has a refuse option. Everyone else I have to contact Afternic to make it go away.

 

[7363824]

Another reason for text record verification,

I uploaded a csv with over 100 domains which I had regged, 17 rejected for already being listed. Makes you wonder how many AN domains are actually available for hand reg doesn't it? The rest all went to In Review. Not one actually listed yet. At least if txt record verification were available my names could all be listed now. Instead I have to wait for AN support to dredge though numerous whois checks to clear this all up, which if I am lucky they might get to Monday.

 

[td11]

That's the thing, there is no one size fits all solution. We specifically do not use txt record verification on Afternic because many people on NamePros asked us not to. Even people on the thread brought it up here that it isn't easy to do everywhere. We do have txt record verification available on GoDaddy auctions and were ready to roll out the same process to Afternic but didn't based on lots of customer feedback. The main issue is that some registrars that domain investors use do not make it easy to manage DNS in bulk at the txt record level. There are a lot of investors who acquire many names a week and doing this DNS update one by one is difficult or impossible for them depending on the amount of names they buy. A lot of registrars do allow you to update in bulk but enough do not. Also some parking companies need your name servers pointed to them and do not allow you to update the txt records when the DNS is pointed away from your registrar. There are caveats of course but I am speaking broadly. The point is looking at this issue as a whole and trying to allow for investors to do all the things they want to do at all the companies they want to use to do it, there isn't a silver bullet or one size fits all approach.

The way to resolve this correctly requires a multi tiered approach. We have given this a lot of thought over the past year. We figure that by doing 5 or 6 different things in concert we can make the process work much better and we have scoped out plans to implement 2-3 of those this year. We hope to step up the automatic removal of old listings proactively. We do remove them now, but we think that we can improve this by scanning the registry drop lists where domains are in a penddelete status. This means without an act of God or a court decision this name IS dropping and the current owner no longer holds the domain. We can delete these listings daily and that way if you do a drop catch or new reg the name should already be de-listed from AN by the time you get it. We also are planning on adding some kind of txt record verification as a supplemental but not mandatory option. So you submit 25 domains and there are issues with 2 or 3. You can go manually make a txt record on those 2-3 and it will override the current listing removing it and adding you as the owner automatically, no need to write in. This would be in addition to our normal checks. We have been discussing name server updates for verification as well. Similar to DAN but again in a multi-tiered fashion. So that you are able to verify multiple ways and hopefully allowing you to have an easy option within your current registrar or parking company.

There are other things we have planned for the future to make it easier to list your domains on Afternic. They probably didn't answer your concern about the fake screenshot because we don't really see that many people trying to trick us about listings. We have multiple fraud checks already in place to prevent bad listings and sales, ways to unwind sales if the worst case were to happen, etc. The fact that we permanently ban you from using our platforms if you try to lie to us is enough of a deterrent in many cases for people not to try and trick us. Weighing that against not buying names on the GoDaddy auction or using our various platforms to sell your domains greatly reduces people's motivation to try and deceive us.

It doesn't matter because we are already planning on using txt records. So asking if we should use it doesn't matter. We are planning on giving multiple options for verification. This solves for both use cases above, using them or not using them. So if you want to use them great and if you don't we will have an option for that too. So no matter which way you answer the poll you are taken care of. I don't think you are reading or understanding my response and I have already answered this enough times for one day.

@Joe Styler are you guys still planning to add txt verification soon or is it going to take 50 years? You posted about txt verification in 2020 but there is still no progress apparently.

 

[poweredbyme]

Voted yes. I can not add some dozens of my domains for years. I emailed screenshots but received no reply from AN. 1-2 times a year I check if the old owners removed my domains from their AN accounts. Such a pain is not neccessary. Sedo has txt verification for longer than a decade. No screeshots, no email, verification works well. Just copy how Sedo implements it. That's it.

It's not a rocket science!

 

[Joe Styler]

@Joe Styler are you guys still planning to add txt verification soon or is it going to take 50 years? You posted about txt verification in 2020 but there is still no progress apparently.

I'm not in charge of that anymore so I can't say for sure. At the time the overwhelming response I received via email, texts, DMs etc was do not do this. The reasoning was that while some registrars make it easy to update txt records in bulk some do not and it would take manually updating all your records to get your domains listed.

We do this on auctions currently, ask for txt record updates in order to verify domain ownership. I have continued to get the same feedback on auctions over time, that people do not like this because it involves updating records manually.

in the past couple years there have been a number of changes to make ownership verification easier for people on AN. For instance there is now a sweep behind the scenes to help remove stale listings to enable new owners to list domains for sale instead of emailing AN to remove the old listings. (this is not comprehensive but it has greatly reduced the number of times this happens). There was also the release of list for sale in GD via the domain control center (DCC). If you own the domain at GD and list it there in the dcc your listing will trump another AN listing and remove it, it also auto verifies you as the owner.

We also hired someone to work on the problem of domain ownership verification and stale listings. He is working on a multi faceted way of ownership verification. I believe there are plans to institute txt record verification in addtion to other forms of verification so that if it is easy for you to use bulk txt record updates you can do so but you are not forced to do it to verify as the only way. They are looking into other ways of making this process easier and more accurate. As I said some have been released and some are coming.

 

[JudgeMind]

Txt records are a real pain when dealing with multiple domains.. I think adding an additional nameserver like Dan does for verification is far better.. the verification process should be a bulk feature @Joe Styler

 

[td11]

Txt records are a real pain when dealing with multiple domains.. I think adding an additional nameserver like Dan does for verification is far better.. the verification process should be a bulk feature @Joe Styler

I don't agree with that. For me it takes 1 minute to add txt record for all my domain names. It is better if they can add both verification methods (nameservers and txt) like Dan.com. There are currently 460 domain names of mine for sale on afternic that have been put up for sale by others. Suppose they are sold there and later it turns out that that person is not the owner. Is also not good for the reputation of afternic.

 

[poweredbyme]

I think afternic is somehow unable or reluctant to add txt verification and it will never happen at afternic.

I would suggest fast transfer as a method of verification. If the user doesn't want fast transfer, supposedly, could then disable it by removing BIN.
However, $100k upper limit at afternic fast transfer would be serious problem for premium domains.