Who can request changes?

Changes to AC.ZA domains must be made by one of the technical or administrative contacts for the domain. The names of contacts can be found by looking up the domain in WHOIS .

• Technical changes (i.e. changes to the nameservers, DNSSEC) can be made by either the technical or administrative contact.
• Administrative changes (e.g. changes to contacts or Registrant details) must be made by the administrative contact.

A request for changes should be sent via email and should come from the contact’s email address as recorded in the Registry (WHOIS provides a partially redacted version to prompt your memory). In the case where the contact email address is a role address and the contact emails us from their personal address, we may ping the role address for confirmation. TENET does apply some discretion in cases where we have an established, ongoing relationship with the Registrant (i.e. they subscribe to other services and we meet regularly).

Note that Cc’ing a contact’s email address from another email address does not provide sufficient authorisation for changes, since there is no way for us to confirm that the Cc received the email.

Changes to DNSSEC may be subject to additional, out-of-band scrutiny.

What if the contacts no longer exist?

If neither the technical nor administrative contact are available, then the request must come from the Principal, Registrar, Chief Information Officer, Director of Information Technology, Company Secretary, or another officer who represents the entire Institution as a juristic person (i.e. someone who has institution-wide authority) in writing, on institutional letterhead. Such requests are subject to additional verification (it helps if the person signing the letter is a person recorded as representing the institution with either the CIPC or DHET, and an ID document may be requested). It is also strongly recommended in these circumstances that the person writing the letter simply delegate new contacts and that we then get the technical information of the change from those new contacts.

This requirement is to safeguard the institution’s domain and is a contractual obligation under the terms and conditions of AC.ZA domains (cf 7.6).

Can’t I get my ISP / DNS hosting service to handle this?

Some Registrants delegate their ISP or DNS hosting service as the technical contact for their domain. This is perfectly acceptable, and we will accept technical changes from any properly delegated technical contact. However, be aware that the onus is on the Registrant (you) to update the contact if/when you terminate that relationship.

What is not possible is to wholly delegate responsibility. The administrative contact for an AC.ZA must always be an executive or employee of the Registrant.