Obligations for all registrars

The Registry-Registrar Agreement (RRA) requires all registrars to meet a minimum set of standards, regardless of their tag type

The following areas are covered:

• Security and technical
• Customer service
• Resellers
• Data quality
• Compliance

Nominet do not prescribe the ways in which registrars can meet the obligations set out in the RRA. We recognise that the best approach may vary with the registrar’s business model.

We do expect registrars to consider how they will meet the obligations and to document the processes they have determined are the best fit for both their business and their customers’ needs.

The principal obligations applicable to all registrars are as follows:

Security and technical

• Ensure resilience and security of Nominet’s and own systems
• Comply with Nominet’s systems instructions
• Demonstrate appropriate levels of technical competence if required by Nominet

Customer service

• Make registrants aware of your contract with them before the contract is made and before renewal, and make registrants aware of any changes to key terms in your contract
• Make registrants aware of Nominet’s Terms and Conditions of Domain Name Registration before the contract is made and before renewal
• Act promptly on a reasonable request from registrants to makes changes to their domain names
• Provide your customer with a minimum of one expiry notice 30 days before expiry of their domain name
• Make customers aware of domain renewal and expiry policies and procedures, and have notification processes in place

Resellers

• Ensure resellers are aware of Nominet’s Terms and Conditions of Domain Name Registration; and their dealings with registrants are compatible
• Ensure registrar’s contract with any reseller is compatible with the RRA
• Provide a copy of reseller contract as and when requested

Data quality

• Ensure data submitted to Nominet meets our completeness requirements
• Take steps to ensure a that minimum proportion of data submitted to Nominet can be validated by us

For further details see the Data Quality Policy

Compliance

• On request, provide evidence as required for Registrar Reviews
• Comply with all lawful requests of UK law enforcement agencies
• Not seek to abuse, misuse, or otherwise exploit the tag classification system to gain an improper advantage or avoid an obligation

Note: Registrars who have a Self Managed tag will be required to meet the customer service requirements where domains are being registered in the name of any third party.