dant
The Living Force
I wanted to add my $0.02 to the issue of domain name registrars so that people are
fully aware of the narcissic mind how registrars might do business. I have tried my
best to cobble this information together so please excuse me if it seems repetive or
an organized mess :)
The company who I used to work for is a registrar for many sites and sister sites, and
it seems they seem to have narcissic goals that pretty much aligns with those of big registrars
such as GoDaddy. Yes, it is true, that these registrars do have traps or otherwise make
it very difficult for domain name customers to transfer, renew, reclaim, and/or to get
back expired or transferred domain names.
But to be fair, the most common reason for loss of a domain name is due to failure of the
customer to renew the domain name early. But the reasons for WHY the failure of renewing
a domain name occurs, varies widely. Often times, customers really do not want the domain
name anymore and simply abandon it. Other times they forget about their domain names
after a year or more, cannot remember where they bought the domain name, are unable
to renew because of bad website design, are too close to the expiration date, or relied on
automatic billing services that no longer works on expired credit cards. Some times a death
of a family member requires a death certificate in order to renew a domain name - it gets
wierder.
Even so, registrars are not in the business exclusively to sell domain names and do not expect to earn much of a profit on this alone. No, the cutthroat business they are in is so competitive that they are continuing to undercut prices, much so that they are actually selling domain names below the wholesale price they must pay, so how it is possible for them to actually remain in business you might ask?
The two (of many) of the most common sources of revenue is from selling services to domain
name holders and by selling advertisement space to advertisers, the latter being the most lucrative.
These two are critical sources of revenue, and in order to keep both, the domain names suddenly are VERY critical because this is where the customer base for which revenue is drawn from.
So, having explained that, do you think that registrars are going to try very very hard
to keep the domain names into their system for as long as they can by whatever means
they can?
Here is some of the tricks of the trade as to how it is possible to what they do and yet they can get away it:
1) Expired or expiring domain names:
- Registrar policy is carefully written are sparse as possible explaining (if at all) the actions a registrar may take regarding expiring or expired domain names. These policies may change AT ANY TIME, so caveat emptor. Make sure you keep copies of these on your site so that you can compare if there has been any changes in policy. You'd be very surprised at how sudden policies changes. You may also want to read carefully the legalise. It is VERY CLEAR they can shutdown the domain name at will. They will tell you that any legalise is NOT IN THEIR HANDS as it is ICANN that handles these issues. This is COMMON in the registrar business - ICANN is the political agency where all legal issues are resolved so again, registrars ARE the INTERNET COPS as STATED IN THEIR POLICIES! Remember - ICANN controls the 13 hostname servers in the USA and refuses to allow EU or other governments to take any control of it. SO THIS IS NOTHING NEW.
- Expiring domain names may be placed into an auction for bidding from several hours to as long as several weeks before the expiration date. The actual expiring date is not published and this mechanism is programmatically setup so that it can change on the fly so as to appear to be in compliance with ICANN rules. I have seen dates of anywhere from several days up to a week before the expiration date. A winning bidder will be granted the domain name unless the original domain name holder successfully can claim it back or can prove the domain name was taken BEFORE the expiration date.
It is easy to refund the auction bidder due to the policy and mechanisms employed. About the original domain name holder, they are asked to provide proof of ownership during this timeframe so that the registrar hopes they will fail to renew the domain name in time. This is a delaying tactic. Some will require proof such as a trademark otherwise you are out of luck.
- Expired domain names.
If an auction bidder has not already claimed your domain name, if your domain name is not a valued domain name and claimed by a domain name grabber, and your domain name is still available, you might be able to reclaim the expired domain name by paying a HEFTY REDEMPTION FEE, AND by paying to renew the domain name. It is a double-whammy. Be aware that after you redeem a domain name, you must renew the domain name within 24-48 hours. Another trap. Failure to renew the domain name will result in another expiration and thus another redemption fee and the cycle repeats.
You can haggle with the registrar customer services all day and all year and you might get lucky but generally speaking, the odds are horribly against you. If customer services fails you, your last course of action becomes a legal one for which you can go into domain name dispute through ICANN or similar political governing body, with a powerful and polically connected domain name lawyer, with lots of dough, lots of time to lose, and lots of prayers.
ADVICE: You must be diligent to protect your domain name at all times. Make sure you keep a personal record of all domain name details, check it regularly to ensure it is protected, ensure that you do NOT allow the domain name to expire and ensure that you renew the domain name at LEAST 6 MONTHS BEFORE THE EXPIRATION DATE. The closer and closer the expiration date means that registrar's traps get worse and worse and delay tactics and other similar measure will kick in sooner and sooner.
Domain Name TRANSFERS:
Transferring a single domain name to another registrar is not always as easy as it seems. But it is certainly easier than with bulk domain name transfers of 5-10-100-1000 or more. Suffice it to say,
some common sense is needed here when you decide to transfer a domain name and the most important one of all is the expiration date. Many domain name holder fails to take notice of this simple litte bugger.., and they wait until the last minute and hope they can successfully transfer the domain name. From experience, I can tell you that if you are going to transfer your domain name, please do it as soon as possible, like 3 months in advance of the expiration date, otherwise renew the domain name first THEN transfer it out especially if you are TOO CLOSE TO THE EXPIRATION DATE. Again, traps are there - and this all adds to more difficulty and more frustrations the closer to get to the expiration date.
One of the little tricks of the trade here is that before you can transfer a single domain name to another registrar, you MUST ensure that the domain name is not locked down at the registry level, as registrars can provide such a mechanism (as it is a registrar tool) to their customers. Some registrars do NOT provide this mechanism however through their customer webpages and they DO have all sorts of other things that they have in their toolbox (registrar registry database commands) to block or otherwise prevent the transfer or modifications to the domain names. For a single domain name, it should be straight forward, but the more domain names you want to transfer out, in bulk, here is where it gets a little more trickier as to WHERE the traps are set, frustrating efforts to transfer massive blocks of domain names out from one registrar to another. These are but a few tricks of the trade that registrars have at their disposal. Be aware that if you domain name is with a registrar, make sure that you ask them (or you, yourself) to lock the domain name so that it prevents other unscrupulous registrars from stealing the domain name from a registrar. It does happen. Also, be aware that some registrars sends out letters or email saying that your domain name is about to expire and gives the appearance that it came from your current domain name registrar when it doesn't and so you make renewal payments only later to discover it was transferred to another registrar or worst, it was never renewed and you money taken and lost forever.
Clearly you now have have to choose a registrar you can trust... and that is where the hardest part of the problem is. Does the registrar have a good website interface and do they give you ALL the tools you need in order to take care of the "problems" yourself? Do they have a customer support base and if so, can you reach them without long distance charges? Have you tested the customer support system so that you know they care about your needs? The list goes on and on.
So, you see, registrars have myriads of 'trade secrets' (otherwise known as traps) and are used against domain name customers. Registrars operate in a CUTTHROAT business, are in a wild west
environment, because revenue from domain names are so cheap that it does not draw big profits,
so they are forced to make up for revenue by offering services to customers or by getting
millions of domain names in order to attract advertisers which is a VERY lucrative revenue
source. Now you understand the goal of GoDaddy as to why they gambled on a superbowl
ad costing millions, because they are hoping that by paying the difference in wholesale cost
for each domain name sold, they hope that millions of customer domain names bought would
buy their services and/or they hope they can attract more advertisers dollars in order to reap
the profits. It is a huge gamble, as you can see.
Besides getting complaints from ISP, people, anyone, the complaints are handled by the "complaint department" and the are supposed to make every effort to contact all affected parties and to resolve the complaint as needed. At least, with the company I was with, it was a policy that was followed but this is only if the management wanted to continue to spend the money to have minimum wage earners process these claims. So this is where it gets tricky. At least with the company I worked for, they did have legal counsel, and it was the legal counsel that made the decsison ALONG WITH THE MANAGEMENT for TOGETHER - it somes down to cost benefit tradeoffs. A risk they must together endure. Seems to me, this might have been what happened with GoDaddy, but of course that is speculation on my part. The registrar legal department is in a fuzzy area here, because ICANN is a large and politically charged entity - so they are called to answer or redirect subpoenas, to handle customer legal issues, and so on and it is hard to manage. This is not new in the registrar business, but what is new is that GoDaddy acted impulsively IMO, so lets see if the domain name holder is smart enough to take GoDaddy to ICANN to get some resolutions on their (impulsive?) actions.
I have personally witnessed subpoenas from the feds for domain names for various reasons
and they are very active in this area and are and will continue to monitor all activities in the
domain name business which is another way to very quickly shutter a business. They do NOT
care nor are they responsible for any revenue loss. Registrars legal statements ensures they are
protected under such cases and always for the most part direct customers to ICANN. As always, caveat emptor!
fully aware of the narcissic mind how registrars might do business. I have tried my
best to cobble this information together so please excuse me if it seems repetive or
an organized mess :)
The company who I used to work for is a registrar for many sites and sister sites, and
it seems they seem to have narcissic goals that pretty much aligns with those of big registrars
such as GoDaddy. Yes, it is true, that these registrars do have traps or otherwise make
it very difficult for domain name customers to transfer, renew, reclaim, and/or to get
back expired or transferred domain names.
But to be fair, the most common reason for loss of a domain name is due to failure of the
customer to renew the domain name early. But the reasons for WHY the failure of renewing
a domain name occurs, varies widely. Often times, customers really do not want the domain
name anymore and simply abandon it. Other times they forget about their domain names
after a year or more, cannot remember where they bought the domain name, are unable
to renew because of bad website design, are too close to the expiration date, or relied on
automatic billing services that no longer works on expired credit cards. Some times a death
of a family member requires a death certificate in order to renew a domain name - it gets
wierder.
Even so, registrars are not in the business exclusively to sell domain names and do not expect to earn much of a profit on this alone. No, the cutthroat business they are in is so competitive that they are continuing to undercut prices, much so that they are actually selling domain names below the wholesale price they must pay, so how it is possible for them to actually remain in business you might ask?
The two (of many) of the most common sources of revenue is from selling services to domain
name holders and by selling advertisement space to advertisers, the latter being the most lucrative.
These two are critical sources of revenue, and in order to keep both, the domain names suddenly are VERY critical because this is where the customer base for which revenue is drawn from.
So, having explained that, do you think that registrars are going to try very very hard
to keep the domain names into their system for as long as they can by whatever means
they can?
Here is some of the tricks of the trade as to how it is possible to what they do and yet they can get away it:
1) Expired or expiring domain names:
- Registrar policy is carefully written are sparse as possible explaining (if at all) the actions a registrar may take regarding expiring or expired domain names. These policies may change AT ANY TIME, so caveat emptor. Make sure you keep copies of these on your site so that you can compare if there has been any changes in policy. You'd be very surprised at how sudden policies changes. You may also want to read carefully the legalise. It is VERY CLEAR they can shutdown the domain name at will. They will tell you that any legalise is NOT IN THEIR HANDS as it is ICANN that handles these issues. This is COMMON in the registrar business - ICANN is the political agency where all legal issues are resolved so again, registrars ARE the INTERNET COPS as STATED IN THEIR POLICIES! Remember - ICANN controls the 13 hostname servers in the USA and refuses to allow EU or other governments to take any control of it. SO THIS IS NOTHING NEW.
- Expiring domain names may be placed into an auction for bidding from several hours to as long as several weeks before the expiration date. The actual expiring date is not published and this mechanism is programmatically setup so that it can change on the fly so as to appear to be in compliance with ICANN rules. I have seen dates of anywhere from several days up to a week before the expiration date. A winning bidder will be granted the domain name unless the original domain name holder successfully can claim it back or can prove the domain name was taken BEFORE the expiration date.
It is easy to refund the auction bidder due to the policy and mechanisms employed. About the original domain name holder, they are asked to provide proof of ownership during this timeframe so that the registrar hopes they will fail to renew the domain name in time. This is a delaying tactic. Some will require proof such as a trademark otherwise you are out of luck.
- Expired domain names.
If an auction bidder has not already claimed your domain name, if your domain name is not a valued domain name and claimed by a domain name grabber, and your domain name is still available, you might be able to reclaim the expired domain name by paying a HEFTY REDEMPTION FEE, AND by paying to renew the domain name. It is a double-whammy. Be aware that after you redeem a domain name, you must renew the domain name within 24-48 hours. Another trap. Failure to renew the domain name will result in another expiration and thus another redemption fee and the cycle repeats.
You can haggle with the registrar customer services all day and all year and you might get lucky but generally speaking, the odds are horribly against you. If customer services fails you, your last course of action becomes a legal one for which you can go into domain name dispute through ICANN or similar political governing body, with a powerful and polically connected domain name lawyer, with lots of dough, lots of time to lose, and lots of prayers.
ADVICE: You must be diligent to protect your domain name at all times. Make sure you keep a personal record of all domain name details, check it regularly to ensure it is protected, ensure that you do NOT allow the domain name to expire and ensure that you renew the domain name at LEAST 6 MONTHS BEFORE THE EXPIRATION DATE. The closer and closer the expiration date means that registrar's traps get worse and worse and delay tactics and other similar measure will kick in sooner and sooner.
Domain Name TRANSFERS:
Transferring a single domain name to another registrar is not always as easy as it seems. But it is certainly easier than with bulk domain name transfers of 5-10-100-1000 or more. Suffice it to say,
some common sense is needed here when you decide to transfer a domain name and the most important one of all is the expiration date. Many domain name holder fails to take notice of this simple litte bugger.., and they wait until the last minute and hope they can successfully transfer the domain name. From experience, I can tell you that if you are going to transfer your domain name, please do it as soon as possible, like 3 months in advance of the expiration date, otherwise renew the domain name first THEN transfer it out especially if you are TOO CLOSE TO THE EXPIRATION DATE. Again, traps are there - and this all adds to more difficulty and more frustrations the closer to get to the expiration date.
One of the little tricks of the trade here is that before you can transfer a single domain name to another registrar, you MUST ensure that the domain name is not locked down at the registry level, as registrars can provide such a mechanism (as it is a registrar tool) to their customers. Some registrars do NOT provide this mechanism however through their customer webpages and they DO have all sorts of other things that they have in their toolbox (registrar registry database commands) to block or otherwise prevent the transfer or modifications to the domain names. For a single domain name, it should be straight forward, but the more domain names you want to transfer out, in bulk, here is where it gets a little more trickier as to WHERE the traps are set, frustrating efforts to transfer massive blocks of domain names out from one registrar to another. These are but a few tricks of the trade that registrars have at their disposal. Be aware that if you domain name is with a registrar, make sure that you ask them (or you, yourself) to lock the domain name so that it prevents other unscrupulous registrars from stealing the domain name from a registrar. It does happen. Also, be aware that some registrars sends out letters or email saying that your domain name is about to expire and gives the appearance that it came from your current domain name registrar when it doesn't and so you make renewal payments only later to discover it was transferred to another registrar or worst, it was never renewed and you money taken and lost forever.
Clearly you now have have to choose a registrar you can trust... and that is where the hardest part of the problem is. Does the registrar have a good website interface and do they give you ALL the tools you need in order to take care of the "problems" yourself? Do they have a customer support base and if so, can you reach them without long distance charges? Have you tested the customer support system so that you know they care about your needs? The list goes on and on.
So, you see, registrars have myriads of 'trade secrets' (otherwise known as traps) and are used against domain name customers. Registrars operate in a CUTTHROAT business, are in a wild west
environment, because revenue from domain names are so cheap that it does not draw big profits,
so they are forced to make up for revenue by offering services to customers or by getting
millions of domain names in order to attract advertisers which is a VERY lucrative revenue
source. Now you understand the goal of GoDaddy as to why they gambled on a superbowl
ad costing millions, because they are hoping that by paying the difference in wholesale cost
for each domain name sold, they hope that millions of customer domain names bought would
buy their services and/or they hope they can attract more advertisers dollars in order to reap
the profits. It is a huge gamble, as you can see.
Besides getting complaints from ISP, people, anyone, the complaints are handled by the "complaint department" and the are supposed to make every effort to contact all affected parties and to resolve the complaint as needed. At least, with the company I was with, it was a policy that was followed but this is only if the management wanted to continue to spend the money to have minimum wage earners process these claims. So this is where it gets tricky. At least with the company I worked for, they did have legal counsel, and it was the legal counsel that made the decsison ALONG WITH THE MANAGEMENT for TOGETHER - it somes down to cost benefit tradeoffs. A risk they must together endure. Seems to me, this might have been what happened with GoDaddy, but of course that is speculation on my part. The registrar legal department is in a fuzzy area here, because ICANN is a large and politically charged entity - so they are called to answer or redirect subpoenas, to handle customer legal issues, and so on and it is hard to manage. This is not new in the registrar business, but what is new is that GoDaddy acted impulsively IMO, so lets see if the domain name holder is smart enough to take GoDaddy to ICANN to get some resolutions on their (impulsive?) actions.
I have personally witnessed subpoenas from the feds for domain names for various reasons
and they are very active in this area and are and will continue to monitor all activities in the
domain name business which is another way to very quickly shutter a business. They do NOT
care nor are they responsible for any revenue loss. Registrars legal statements ensures they are
protected under such cases and always for the most part direct customers to ICANN. As always, caveat emptor!
