When performing a change of registrant you can opt to perform the change independently or provide permission to Tucows to perform this action on your behalf through a Designated Agent (DA).
What is a Designated Agent (DA)
As a workaround to the approval emails required in the ICANN trade process, the Designated Agent option can be used to auto-approve the changes made on a registrant contact. This means that a registrant can give authority to Tucows to confirm a change of registrant. When Tucows is enabled to act as a DA, the registrant will not receive an approval email in order for a change to be processed. Instead, Tucows will always auto-approve any change of registrant. The explicit consent of the registrant to participate in the DA program is required. By default, a change of registrant processed for a domain with the DA will be locked with a 60-day registrar transfer lock.
Enable DA setting
If you previously opted to enable DA for all domains in your account and wish for DA to remain enabled, you will need to log in to the Reseller Control Panel and re-enable it manually. Enabling the DA option will set Tucows as the DA for all existing as well as future registrants. The account-wide, enable DA setting can only be performed from the control panel. This option is not available using API. However, the DA setting for a single registrant can be modified using API commands.
Note: DA setting is a one time use tool and once enabled, you will not be able to undo or edit this section.
- Log in to the Reseller Control Panel.
- Click on the Domains tab and click on Settings.
- Click Edit next to Enable Designated Agent for all registrants.
- Read the agreement, check all of the boxes to confirm the agreement, type in your full name, toggle the DA switch and click Confirm.
API options
Enable DA via API call
The enable_designated_agent command can be used to enable Tucows as a DA on behalf of a registrant. If this setting is enabled for a registrant, contact modifications will automatically be approved by the registrar. An IP address is required when making the call. Please ask the registrant to provide their IP address. This IP acts as a “digital signature” to ensure that the registrant agrees to the actions of the reseller.
Enable or disable 60-day transfer lock
The 60-day transfer lock will be on by default if the ICANN trade occurs with DA. To remove the lock, use the modify_trade_lock_setting API call before issuing a trade. Similarly to the enable_designated_agent API call, an IP address is required to modify the transfer lock. Please ask the registrant to provide their IP address.
Note: The modify_trade_lock_setting call will not unlock a domain if the domain is already transfer locked. In that case, you must submit the modify_trade_lock_setting call and then process another trade to unlock the domain from the transfer lock.
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