Post-Expiration Domain Name Recovery
Here are the opinions and suggestions from Mike Secord, Premier Website Solutions owner. 1. Whether adequate opportunity exists for registrants to redeem their expired domain names; I believe registrants have sufficient time to redeem an expired domain name.2. Whether expiration-related provisions in typical registration agreements are clear and conspicuous enough; I believe registration agreements are pretty clear about expired domains.3. Whether adequate notice exists to alert registrants of upcoming expirations; This depends on the registrar. I find most registrars do give sufficient warnings in time and quantity, but I also remember losing a couple domains back in 2002 and 2003 because I was using a registrar that did not send any reminders. Being a few years ago, it's possible that all registrars do send ample notices now, but since 2004 I've only been dealing with a few, so I can't know for sure if they all send reminders now. Of course, when registering a domain name, the registrant knows it's only good for the time it was registered, and therefore shouldn't even need reminders, but people do forget things a year later, and not everyone is good at keeping track of things. Whether adequate notice exists or not, I think in general it does. A registrar that does not send out reminders (easy to automate) is just making a big business mistake. That's why in 2003 I transferred a dozen domains away from the registrar I was using then. 4. Whether additional measures need to be implemented to indicate that once a domain name enters the Auto-Renew Grace Period, it has expired (e.g., hold status, a notice on the site with a link to information on how to renew, or other options to be determined); Like Andrew said earlier, central registry whois needs to be more accurate, or more easily understood, when a domain expires. After expiry, a central registry whois should not look like the domain was renewed. Maybe have the Status show pending renewal/deletion. Even some registrars add a year to the date, and that can be very confusing if someone uses whois to check up on a domain. Right now we have a client domain that expired a month ago. A whois at the registrar and the central database shows it as being good to July 2010. The status is the same as before. Other than expiration date, the only difference from a month ago is the nameservers, so if the client does a whois, he'll think we renewed the domain. As for "a notice on the site", I think that should be mandatory. My current main registrar doesn't do that. They just have a page of ad links, just like if the domain was parked with them. That's one thing I did like better about a previous registrar. When a domain expired with them, it pointed to their own page, but the page said clearly the domain was expired and included a link on how to renew. As for "a link to information on how to renew", that's a different story. With my current registrar, I'm a reseller. Customers are supposed to renew through me and they don't offer direct registration, so they can't really include a renewal link, but they should include a note saying it is expired, and maybe even a note along the line of "contact your service provider to renew". 5. Whether to allow the transfer of a domain name during the Redemption Grace Period (RGP). This one is my main reason for getting involved in this discussion.Registrars are not the owner of a domain name and should not have any rights to it, unless the registrant gives away his (or her) rights. i.e. I believe between registration and dropping, the registrant should be the only person with any rights to a domain name. Too many registrars "keep" expired domains and put them up for sale. Sometimes the registrant may be late in renewing the domain and have it reach RGP, at which time the cost to renew is much higher, so they may decide to just let it drop and try to get it again. This happened with one of our customers and we couldn't get it for him because the registrar didn't let it go. Some registrar give the option of canceling a domain name before expiry. If a customer cancels the domain, he is clearly stating he does not want it any more. At that point, I feel if the registrar wants to take it over, it's their choice. Another option would be, when a domain expires, if the registrar wants to keep it, they could contact the owner and if the owner "gives" it to them, they can do what they want. Otherwise, the registrar should let the domain go and if they want it, try to grab it themselves when it drops. At this time, I am only a registrar reseller, and I currently manage over 300 domains. Only once a customer didn't renew a domain they registered through us that we liked, so we asked them if they wanted to renew it or if we could keep it and he said we could keep it. If he hadn't replied, we would have let it go and tried back-ordering it. I don't feel we had any rights to it without his consent. Far too many domains are for sale by registrars, and some of them expect crazy prices. Domain names should not be a buy/sell commodity. Mike Secord -- Website Hosting, Design, and Domain Registration Reseller Accounts, SSL Certificates, and Referral Program Find it all at http://www.PremierWebsiteSolutions.com Quality and service you expect, at prices you don't. |