No, I’m not talking about the mean T-Wolves, who are making their star player’s family starve.
On November 12, 2004, ICANN passed a policy, which basically means this: Domain name transfers will no longer require email-based approval by the domain name’s regsistrant.
So, I could basically ask for your domain name to be transferred over to my name, and your registrar will process it without so much as sending you an email about it. A few registrars are protecting their customers by locking their domain names by default (and for free, too). And if you wish to transfer over a domain name yourself, you would have to unlock it first. Which is still great considering the consequences otherwise.
ICANN has implemented a “Redemption Grace Period Service that provides a 30-day period for domain name holders to reclaim their names if deleted unintentionally from a registry database“.
Their “Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy” won’t come to your rescue fast enough when your site with 100,000 visitors a day, 5,000,000 impressions and $5,000 in revenue a month from adwords, suddenly starts pointing to your competition’s web site.
So, go lock up your domain names before the domain-wolves get them.