Bill,
I'm not speaking for Bill. These are my views.
You indicate "a" known former state, which implies that you'd allow reverting back multiple changes under your proposed scheme...
You would have to. Otherwise, two quick transfers would defeat the scheme. An alternative approach would be to prohibit a transfer within one week of another transfer.
Out of curiosity, how far back would you allow one to revert to? Any previous state within the last two weeks? Longer, or shorter?
I would say two weeks would be a reasonable maximum. One week would be a reasonable minimum. One could also do it in terms of business days, but I think this may cause confusion with international issues and which days count as business days.
Given the potential for disruption through fraudulent demands to revert, one has to carry over previous servers for at least this interval to be safe, or do I misunderstand your proposal?
This would mean that a transfer would not really be final for some number of days after the transfer was initiated. This would, of course, create a new problem with fraudulent reverts. A no questions asked revert policy would create one class of problems, whereas a requirement for proof for reversion would create another class. I personally think the best solution is as follows: 1) A domain cannot be transferred within one week of a previous transfer. 2) Once a domain that was in normal status has been transferred, it can be reverted by request of the losing registrar for one week from the time of the transfer, no questions asked, as soon as possible. (Should Verisign do this? Or the losing registrar through an automated interface?) 3) If the gaining registrar questions the reversion, the losing registrar must then provide proof of request for reversion from the previous owner and the gaining registrar can provide proof of release from the previous owner. Some method to resolve this dispute would be needed. Perhaps arbitration at the initial expense of the gaining registrar (who could, of course, bill their customer however they choose). The arbitrator could award costs to the winner of the dispute (in case of total bogus reversion requests). This would allow people to protect valuable domains by picking registrars with sensibe reversion policies. It would also prevent dishonest registrars from holding domains through reversion without authorization, though they could impose costs on the gaining registrar if they wished). The downside would be that when you acquired a new or newly-transferred domain, you would want to wait a week before using it for anything mission critical. You also couldn't consider the act of transferring a domain proof positive of intent to give it to you. You might want to wait a week before, for example, making payment. Or you would want to possess proof of the owner's intent to transfer, not just proof of a transfer. David Schwartz <davids@webmaster.com>