DynDNS.com Account Ownership, Access Recovery and Service Separation Policy

Last updated February 9, 2010

The following document constitutes the DynDNS.com Account Ownership, Access Recovery and Service Separation Policy. If you no longer have access to your account, please follow the instructions below to regain control of your services.

Please note: For privacy and security reasons, DynDNS.com does not discuss account ownership or recovery matters over the phone. Please contact our Billing Team at billing@dyndns.com for assistance with account recovery.

Definition of Ownership

There are two different types of ownership that customers should be aware of when attempting to regain access to their account or services.

Account Ownership

The creator of every DynDNS.com account must, in accordance with the DynDNS.com Acceptable Use Policy ("AUP") and Terms of Service ("TOS") provide an email address at which Dyn Inc. may contact him/her (the "Authoritative Email Address"). Before any account is activated, Dyn Inc. sends an email to the Authoritative Email Address with a link that the prospective account owner must click through to confirm that the account associated with the Authoritative Email Address should be activated.

The person that controls the Authoritative Email Address is considered the "owner" of the account.

Domain Name Ownership

The party that purchases any domain name must, pursuant to the Domain Registration Agreement ("DRA") that the party enters into at the time of domain name purchase, provide the domain name registrar with certain contact information and keep that contact information up to date. More specifically, the party is required to provide the name, postal address, e-mail address, and voice and fax (if available) telephone numbers of the administrative, billing, and technical contact for the domain name at issue.

The person that controls the Administrative Contact Email Address is considered the "owner" of the domain name. Domain name ownership supersedes account ownership.

Account Access Recovery

The following methods describe the proper procedures for regaining access to DynDNS.com accounts and services.

Password Reset

All DynDNS.com account owners may use the Reset Password Form to regain access to their account. The customer may enter either their username or Authoritative Email Address into the form. A confirmation email will be delivered to the Authoritative Email Address, allowing the customer to change their password and log in with their new credentials. This is the primary means of account recovery in all circumstances.

The Reset Password Form can be found here: https://www.dyndns.com/account/resetpass/index.html

Recovering Free Accounts

"Expired" Accounts

Free accounts are subject to inactivity expiration. If a customer does not log into the account within a 30-day period, and no Dynamic DNS updates are performed during this time, the account and its services will be deleted from the DynDNS.com database. Free accounts will not be restored by the Billing Team. Customers may recreate lost accounts here: https://www.dyndns.com/account/entrance/

Account Deletion for Invalid Email Addresses

The DynDNS.com AUP requires customers to maintain a valid Authoritative Email Address at all times. If the Authoritative Email Address is no longer valid (returns 500-level error code from the responsible mail server, e.g. 550 User Unknown, Message Undeliverable, Delivery Failure, etc.), Dyn Inc. is free to terminate the account and its associated services for noncompliance. Deleted accounts and Dynamic DNS hostnames are returned to the pool of available account and service names, allowing customers to recreate them.

To recover a free account with an invalid email address, please contact the Billing Team at billing@dyndns.com. In your email, provide the username of the account and briefly explain the situation, informing them that the address on file is invalid and that you wish to have the account removed. The Team will verify the address's validity, then remove the account and its services if it is invalid.

Please note: Under no circumstances will DynDNS.com transfer, delete or recreate individual services for free accounts. If you lose access to your free account, but the Authoritative Email Address is still valid or otherwise does not return a "permanent" failure (e.g. returns 421 Service Temporarily Unavailable, mail server times out, etc.), DynDNS.com will not remove the account in question. You will need to create a new account and choose a different hostname.

Recovering Paid Accounts

Information Verification

If the Password Reset method outlined above does not work, your next option is to provide certain billing details to verify account ownership. Please contact the Billing Team at billing@dyndns.com with the account name in question and request billing verification. You will be asked for certain pieces of information regarding the credit card used to purchase the services on that account; if the information is correct, the Billing Team will update the Authoritative Email Address for the account to a new address of your choosing. You will receive a Change Email confirmation request at that address. You may then issue a Password Reset (see above) to regain access to your account.

Please note: This recovery method is only available to customers who have used a single credit card to purchase services on their account. If you have used more than one card, even if the billing information is identical, this recovery method will not be available to you.

Account Change Form

If the other recovery methods are unavailable to you, control over the account may be recovered by submitting an Administrative/Authoritative Email Address Change Request Form ("Change Request Form") along with the associated documentation. The Change Request Form may be found at http://www.dyndns.com/about/legal/AdminEmailChange.pdf. Please note that this recovery method requires an administrative processing fee that must be submitted prior to account recovery.

Please note: The correct fax number is +1-603-668-6474.

Domain Name and DynDNS.com Account Separation

Some DynDNS.com customers create and administer DynDNS® services on behalf of others, such as a consultant setting up and maintaining websites for local businesses. These customers frequently keep all of the domain names they administer in a single account for convenience. Unfortunately, sometimes the account owner becomes unavailable or unresponsive, and the domain name owner must regain access to their services to maintain them.

Because of this, DynDNS.com considers the Administrative Contact Email Address on file for a domain in WHOIS to be ultimately authoritative for a domain registration. If we receive a request from the Administrative Contact Email Address for a domain name, we consider this request to supersede the authority of the overall account owner and will comply with the request.

To separate and recover a domain name, create a new DynDNS.com account using the Administrative Contact Email Address for the domain in WHOIS. Once created and confirmed, please contact our Billing Team at billing@dyndns.com stating that you wish to move the domain name and its associated services into the new account. The Billing Team will verify your ownership of the domain and transfer it — and all associated services, including Custom DNS, MailHop, etc. — to the new account. You can perform WHOIS lookups here: http://www.dnscog.com/whois/

Please note: Only the Administrative Contact Email Address is considered authoritative for a domain registration; no other contact, including registrant, billing, or technical, is considered authoritative, and requests from these additional contacts will be ignored.