Is Telnames allowed to sell domains?

For all people who have wondered why Telnames has been created, here is the answer as found at http://icannwiki.com/index.php/Vertical_Integration

On February 26, 2001, ICANN proposed a new registry agreement stipulating the legal separation between registry and registrar under section 3.5 Fair Treatment of ICANN-Accredited Registrars, wherein Registry Operators are not allowed to act as registrars with respect to the Registry TLD.

In 2005, ICANN implemented the registry-registrar separation of ownership in the registry agreement for the .jobs and .travel sponsored TLDs.
Under Section 7.1 clause b and c in the registry agreement states the following provisions:
(b) Registry Operator Shall Not Act as Own Registrar. Registry Operator shall not act as a registrar with respect to the TLD. This shall not preclude Registry Operator from registering names within the TLD to itself through a request made to an ICANN-accredited registrar.
(c) Restrictions on Acquisition of Ownership or Controlling Interest in Registrar. Registry Operator shall not acquire, directly or indirectly, control of, or a greater than fifteen percent ownership interest in, any ICANN-accredited registrar.

At present, these provisions are included in the registry agreements for all sponsored and unsponsored TLDs.

Herewith it is clear Telnic can't sell domains themselves, so instead they have created Telnames to sell them.

But is Telnames allowed to sell domains?

1. Telnames isn't an ICANN-accredited registrar.
   
2. In contradiction to the clause 7.1 (c) Telnames is owned by Telnic to 100 percent.
   
3. Telnames try to work around this by entering the KEY-SYSTEMS GMBH technically as sponsoring registrar into the "who is" database.
   
4. But there is no other connection to KEY-SYSTEMS GMBH than using their name for the purpose of avoiding naming Telnames as sponsoring registrar.
   
5. The domain administration, marketing and development is happing only at Telnames and not at KEY-SYSTEMS GMBH.
   
6. KEY-SYSTEMS GMBH themselves do not appear at all for the domain and database administration, development and marketing at Telnames.

Now the following circumstances become clear:

Telnic want their registrars doing the programming for their control panel as you can read in their Technical Requirements for Telhosting Providers:

The Sponsoring Organisation has identified the role of a provider of TelHosting services (a “TelHosting Provider”) as an important entity within the system for the .tel TLD. TelHosting Providers will provide DNS service for delegations in the .tel TLD.

The .tel TLD is a sponsored TLD. Therefore the Sponsoring Organisation will be the sole authority for accreditation of TelHosting Providers. This document defines the technical specifications and requirements for accreditation, including minimum specifications in a number of areas relating to the domain name system: protocol compliance; performance metrics; name server configuration and operation; and adherence to the Sponsoring Organisation’s policies and TelHosting Provider functional requirements.

Telnic tried to prevent any discussion about Telnames as you can see from their statement:

Recently, speculation regarding an entity that has yet to launch and which is testing a new template unrelated to the CTH competition templates has been discussed heavily in this forum. For clarity, we would like to say that we will not use this forum to discuss this entity and any questions relating to this entity should be directed to them, via their .tel name. We can however confirm that this entity is not an ICANN-accredited Registrar and thus why Telnic will not be engaging in communications regarding this entity in the .tel community forum.

Telnic make it sound like they have nothing to do with Telnames, although Telnames is owned to 100 percent by Telnic and only Telnic employees work for Telnames.

I think this should answer any unanswered questions of the past!

It would have been smarter for Telnic to let KEY-SYSTEMS GMBH run the promotion for Telnames or at least involve them a little bit.
In that case this construction would have been legally secured a little bit and in addition the Telnames project could have been a role model for other registrars, too.
But since the operation of Telnames is done to 100 percent only by Telnic members the artifice becomes obvious!

KEY-SYSTEMS GMBH don't know what they're promoting/selling vs telnic do so let em be, if it was not legal ICANN would have all ready stepped in, you don't think they monitor TLDS they put in the wild?

come on... of course they keep an eye on them they probably have whole departments that monitor what goes on.

fustachio.tel wrote:KEY-SYSTEMS GMBH don't know what they're promoting/selling vs telnic do so let em be, if it was not legal ICANN would have all ready stepped in, you don't think they monitor TLDS they put in the wild?

come on... of course they keep an eye on them they probably have whole departments that monitor what goes on.

Telnames isn't an ICANN-accredited registrar, so they are working in secret.
I doubt ICANN even knows about the existence of Telnames. Please think about TEL is a very small TLD. (Telnames have less than 3,000 registrations.) And ICANN have a lot of work with thousands of new TLDs coming next year.

Interesting inside!
Unlikely that Telnic has asked ICANN for approval before Telnames was founded!
This constellation of a registry is unique in the domain world.

Telminator wrote:3. Telnames try to work around this by entering the KEY-SYSTEMS GMBH technically as sponsoring registrar into the "who is" database.
4. But there is no other connection to KEY-SYSTEMS GMBH than using their name for the purpose of avoiding naming Telnames as sponsoring registrar.
5. The domain administration, marketing and development is happing only at Telnames and not at KEY-SYSTEMS GMBH.
6. KEY-SYSTEMS GMBH themselves do not appear at all for the domain and database administration, development and marketing at Telnames.[/list]

I think the same. Key Systems has nothing to do with Telnames.
The German company Key Systems offers their services in Germany and has no connection to the UK while Telnames is distributed by the Telnic team only in the UK.
All servers point to the British company Telnames which certainly are not administrated by Key Systems.
Probably Key Systems gets only a small share of the registration fees, so they keep silent.
Key Systems seems to be window dressing to hide that Telnames is operated only by Telnic.

The question if Telnames is allowed to sell domains doesn't seem important, because they are not able to sell many; until today only about 2,500.
That makes less than 500 per month!

Toptel wrote:The question if Telnames is allowed to sell domains doesn't seem important, because they are not able to sell many; until today only about 2,500.
That makes less than 500 per month!

The question is important, because if Telnic wouldn't waste their time with Telnames, they could care about the development of Telnic.
Currently Telnic stands still instead!

@Telminator

Great job in pulling all the facts together in one place.

This looks like a tricky compliance issue for ICANN to rule on (Freedom for .tel has already made a formal complaint) given that Telnames is not actually a registrar, but a reseller owned by the Telnic registry but operating through the Key Systems registrar !

Talk about obfuscation, no wonder Telnic refused to openly discuss "this entity" Telnames on their forum.

What is really ridiculous is that if Telnic had simply added the Telnames template to the Telnic control panel:

a) None of this bad feeling by existing Telnic customers would have happened.

b) There would potentially now be tens of thousands of Telnames templates out there, as existing users converted to it at zero cost (via the Telnic control panel), which may well have resulted in "Joe Public" starting to notice .tel domains.

c) Telnic registrars who are now getting upset that they have been left to sell an old .tel product (the Telnic templates), which is no longer being marketed, would not be considering dropping .tel as no longer worth the trouble compared to other existing TLDs (and the 1000+ new gTLDs arriving soon).

I have said this before, but whenever you look at the facts it's very hard not to think of this as yet another example of Snatching Defeat From The Jaws Of (Possible) Victory !

Is .tel worth the hassle any more ?

http://MikeSeaton.tel

mikeseaton wrote:b) There would potentially now be tens of thousands of Telnames templates out there, as existing users converted to it at zero cost (via the Telnic control panel), which may well have resulted in "Joe Public" starting to notice .tel domains.

That's the point!
Telnic does everything to prevent its own success.
It is like selling a Mercedes to 2,500 bikers who just got their driver's license (through Telnames) while the 250,000 businessmen who are customers already are forced to use a Trabant (through Telnic)!

Toptel wrote:

mikeseaton wrote:b) There would potentially now be tens of thousands of Telnames templates out there, as existing users converted to it at zero cost (via the Telnic control panel), which may well have resulted in "Joe Public" starting to notice .tel domains.

That's the point!
Telnic does everything to prevent its own success.
It is like selling a Mercedes to 2,500 bikers who just got their driver's license (through Telnames) while the 250,000 businessmen who are customers already are forced to use a Trabant (through Telnic)!

If ICANN steps in, Telnic could be forced to bring the same quality to all customers.

mikeseaton wrote:This looks like a tricky compliance issue for ICANN to rule on (Freedom for .tel has already made a formal complaint) given that Telnames is not actually a registrar, but a reseller owned by the Telnic registry but operating through the Key Systems registrar !

Talk about obfuscation, no wonder Telnic refused to openly discuss "this entity" Telnames on their forum.

It doesn't seem tricky, because it's obvious why Telnic used this specification:
Telnic isn't allowed to act as registrar, so they had to found a new company to sell domains (Telnames).
Telnic isn't allowed to control an ICANN-accredited registrar, so Telnames couldn't apply for accrediting.
Telnames is not allowed to sell domains without being an ICANN-accredited registrar. That's why Telnic need the help of KeySystems to give their name for Telnames.
But in fact it's very obvious Telnames is selling the domains, not KeySystems. How else it can be only Telnic staff is doing 100 % of the work for Telnames? Why only Telnic employees appear at expos and in interviews about Telnames?
Therewith it's very clear the ICANN agreement has been breached!

TelKing wrote:Therewith it's very clear the ICANN agreement has been breached!

There are many breaches, as example:

1. Telnic act with their own company Telnames as registrar.
   
2. Telnames sell domains without being an ICANN-accredited registrar.
   
3. Telnames is using the name of KEY-SYSTEMS as sponsoring registrar although KEY-SYSTEMS is not.
   
4. Telnic don't treat all their registrars the same (in favor of Telnames).
   
5. Telnic exclude the "Sponsored Community" for developing or enforcing standards, policies, procedures, or practices.
   
6. Telnic neglect their obligations to develop the product for their old customers (not Telnames).
   
7. Telnic violate the rules for openness and transparency by shutting down all communication and ignoring all complaints.
   
8. Telnic's staff is only working for Telnames, but not for Telnic anymore.

Telminator wrote:Is Telnames allowed to sell domains?

This question is very easy to answer.
There are only two types of entities for any TLD allowed to sell domains: 1. registrars and 2. resellers
Is Telnames a reseller? No!
Is Telnames a registrar? Yes!
Is Telnames ICANN-accredited? No!
Hence where is the legal base for selling domains?

Expert wrote:

Telminator wrote:Is Telnames allowed to sell domains?

This question is very easy to answer.
There are only two types of entities for any TLD allowed to sell domains: 1. registrars and 2. resellers
Is Telnames a reseller? No! Yes!
Is Telnames a registrar? Yes! No!
Is Telnames ICANN-accredited? No!
Hence where is the legal base for selling domains?

@Expert - you actually got the first two answers the wrong way around - corrections marked in Red.

http://MikeSeaton.tel

Is Telnames a reseller or do they only pretend to be one?

I would say they are a registry (Telnic) pretending to be a reseller (Telnames).
Telnames is definitely not a reseller, because they sell a product which the alleged registrar (Keysystems) don't offer.
Keysystems sells only the templates from Telnic which are a different development and not as advanced as the template developed by Telnames.
And how can it be that the reseller and the software developer are the same company (Telnames), but Keysystems is not able to distribute this development themselves?

Expert wrote:I would say they are a registry (Telnic) pretending to be a reseller (Telnames).

That is the fact. Of course Telnic and Telnames are the same company: a registry selling domains to end customers!

In Germany they say it clearly:

Telnames Ltd, Registry der Telefon-Domain .tel, bietet ab sofort eine neue App namens »Mobile Website Builder« für das iPhone an.

Translation:

Telnames Ltd., registry of the phone domain .tel, is now offering a new app called »Mobile Website Builder« for the iPhone.

This comment is from a website specialized in internet law:
http://www.domain-recht.de/domain-registrierung/top-level-domains/tel-telnames-bietet-iphone-app-fur-tel-domains-63018.html

Please remember this:

On February 26, 2001, ICANN proposed a new registry agreement stipulating the legal separation between registry and registrar under section 3.5 Fair Treatment of ICANN-Accredited Registrars, wherein Registry Operators are not allowed to act as registrars with respect to the Registry TLD.

http://www.teltalk.org/t642-is-telnames-allowed-to-sell-domains#3352

Telnic could have avoided the problem like others try to do:

http://www.teltalk.org/t1405-afilias-wants-registrar-ownership-ban-lifted-on-mobi-and-pro