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The Internet Businesses IT

Registrars Still Ignoring ICANN Rules 122

stry_cat writes "Over a year ago ICANN moved to clean up misbehaving registrars like GoDaddy. They released this scary sounding advisory. However, over a year later, problems remain. One company is now publicly complaining. Some of the biggest registrars are slammed for their actions. 'Register.com is one frustrating company. The ICANN policy clearly prohibits blocking a transfer of a domain name that has expired but not yet been deleted. Despite that, a customer trying to transfer a three-day-expired Register.com domain name told us last week that they refused to give him the necessary code to allow him to transfer — unless he pays them to renew it first. ... GoDaddy (and their reseller arm, Wild West Domains) have a different problem: They still block transfers for 60 days after a registrant's contact update, even after the ICANN update specifically prohibited doing so. They freely admit it, too. ... We see a similar problem with many transfers from Network Solutions.'"
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Registrars Still Ignoring ICANN Rules

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  • by Anonymous Coward
    Socialist attempts by ICANN to regulate and introduce market inefficiency in the domain-registration business are tantamount to introducing price controls.

    Milton Friedman's free market efficiency theory proves that 100% market efficiency arises as a result of zero regulation, and our goal as denizens of the internet is to pursue maximal free market efficiency in order to further the interests of the public good.
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by sopssa ( 1498795 ) *

      The only reason ICANN is ignoring it is because GoDaddy and Network Solutions are one of the largest registrars and bring them lots of money. If it was some small registrar, you would be sure they would receive complaints from ICANN.

      • So... the offenders are Too Big To Fail?
        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          More like To Big To Piss Off

          • I can't help but think that should Network Solutions disappear tomorrow, within a day, there would be a whole slew of companies willing to fill the void.
          • by dgatwood ( 11270 ) on Wednesday July 22, 2009 @05:55PM (#28789233) Homepage Journal

            Piss them off anyway. GoDaddy is a bunch of leaches on the face of the Internet. Although I've never used GoDaddy for providing domain names (I'm very picky about who I trust with something that important), I tried using them for hosting and SSL certs recently. My GoDaddy experience was so bad that I actually wrote my first Slashdot journal entry about it. The gory details are chronicled here [slashdot.org].

            Godaddy is absolutely the most inept company I have ever dealt with; they make Fry's employees look knowledgeable, caring, and competent. They make Brooklyn camera shops seem above board. They sell services, then back out of the deal, screw up the refund afterwards, oversell their shared hosting servers, don't monitor what people do with them (allowing a few customers to cause multi-minute site outages), don't respond to customer complaints other than suggesting ways for you to pay them more money, require you to do things that defy the laws of physics in order for them to pay attention to your complaints... basically, they have single-handedly changed what the "S" stands for in ISP. They are to ISPs what the BOFH is to a proper IT manager.

            I think it would be absolutely AWESOME if ICANN revoked their registrar status. It's not Chapter 7, but it would be a good start.

            • Ive had the opposite experience with GoDaddy. Im not a fanboi but their pricing is good, setup and maintenance is insanely automated and still lets you do pretty advanced stuff like tweak MX records. For the few sites I host and a few dozen domains registered, I have a few thousand email accounts for free, with decent mailbox depth. Web, POP and SMPT all work OK-ish. Tech support answers with a person, they speak English, they listen before they talk, and know what Im talking about. Usually what is wrong ge
              • Oh, their 'Domains By Proxy' stuff is a leach on the internet. Yeah, gotta go with dgatwood on that.
              • I completely agree with you, RenderSeven - I've been very happy with Godaddy. I don't like their cluttered control panel that's declined in usability in recent years (although they've been making it more usable recently), and I don't like their mass market, transparent up sale practices when buying products. Other than that the service delivers what it promises, the tech support is generally good, has short wait times, and is in the United States, and I feel confident when I purchase their services. I had o
              • by gd2shoe ( 747932 )

                and still lets you do pretty advanced stuff like tweak MX records.

                Oh... yeah... That's pretty advanced stuff all right...

                Please tell me they at least permit you to set up an SPF record. DNESEC? Anything truly advanced?

                • For an automated web administration gui? Yeah that's pretty advanced. Advanced for 95% of users probably, maybe not advanced enough for everyone. Wait, whats your point?

                  But, yes you can set up SPF records.
            • They are to ISPs what the BOFH is to a proper IT manager.

              From what you write, and what I've heard elsewhere, Godaddy acts the way it does because its employees just don't know any better. That's not being a BOFH, or even a PFY; it's just being a bunch of pointy-haired lusers.

            • Godaddy is absolutely the most inept company I have ever dealt with;

              You've never dealt with Verizon or AT&T (SBC).

              It's a dammed miracle anyone is ever able to get anything resembling service setup from either of them. I've heard stories from their own technicians recommending various ways of threatening them to get the most basic tasks accomplished.

              • "Can I speak to tier 2?"

                Seriously. If you're on Slashdot and are halfway knowledgeable (you've already power-cycled the DSL modem, trouble-shot your local network, etc) this is by far the best way to get your DSL service fixed by them. Their first line of operators only know how to read from a script. Their Tier 2 people have an actual clue about what is going on.

                And when they say they're running a "line test", in certain locales that can reset local hardware. They may come back saying that they saw no

              • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

                I've dealt with both Verizon and AT&T. My experience with Verizon was that I dumped them because they wouldn't sell replacement phones without changing my grandfathered night rate to start at 9:00. Still, although they were personified evil as a company, I never found them to be utterly incompetent.

                And AT&T... it's hard to get results from them, but that's mostly because they keep telling you to call a different number eighteen times before you get the right division. That's not incompetence. Th

      • The only reason ICANN is ignoring it is because GoDaddy and Network Solutions are one of the largest registrars and bring them lots of money. If it was some small registrar, you would be sure they would receive complaints from ICANN.

        That doesn't make sense. All business goes to ICANN eventually. They could stop serving godaddy, and that same business would funnel through other companies or new startups.

    • by eln ( 21727 ) on Wednesday July 22, 2009 @04:12PM (#28787863)
      The entire purpose of the Domain Name System is, or was, to enforce structure in naming on the Internet. When it was under the purview of the old Network Solutions, under the guidance of the NSF, domains were well-organized, expensive enough to deter squatting, and TLDs actually meant something.

      Under ICANN, the whole system has descended into chaos. It's laughable to see ICANN trying to exert any sort of control over the registrars now, when they've spent the last 10 years doing whatever the hell the registrars wanted them to. The whole system is broken, and ICANN has no effective authority to do anything about it. Some sort of regulation with teeth is badly needed, and ICANN is completely unequipped for that sort of thing. Their feeble attempts to assert authority this late in the game are laughable.
      • by gnud ( 934243 )
        The most effective solution might be to purge all godaddy/registrar.com (and similar) IPs from the root servers. Methinks they would get their act together fairly quickly.

        Of course, this would cause its own set of problems.
      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by NJRoadfan ( 1254248 )
        One word can sum up ICANN's "control" of the system... RegisterFly.
      • by rs79 ( 71822 )

        " The entire purpose of the Domain Name System is, or was, to enforce structure in naming on the Internet. "

        Not. There are no documents anywhere that support this idea.

        The purpose of the DNS is to be able to find computers on the network with easy to remember names, instead of IP addresses.

        The (very) rough breakdown of top level domains in categories was arbitrary and capricious. Postel came up with com/net/org and evrybody hated it on the one mailing list on the net at the time "the message group" but he

      • I lost several domains I've had for years - I paid to renew them with Yi.org, the reseller and DNS host, and while they charged me they never did the job. I contacted eNom, the registrar, and they made excuses as to why they they couldn't help me. They still held the domains in my name - for some domains they offered to fix it if I paid $160 extra fee each and some they flat out claimed they could do nothing. In the end I lost some and finally figured out I could grab them back on their partner NameJet for

    • by X0563511 ( 793323 ) on Wednesday July 22, 2009 @04:18PM (#28787955) Homepage Journal

      You are more than welcome to create your own root domain, and do what you want. Nobody makes you use the structure controlled by ICANN.

      • You're free to make your own alphabet as well and use it on all your documents!

    • So is it regulation that is destroying the world economy now? That is really a fresh take on insanity.
  • by nurb432 ( 527695 ) on Wednesday July 22, 2009 @03:56PM (#28787587) Homepage Journal

    Laws, less so.

    • Re: (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      No Rules and Laws are the same. If no one enforce them no one will follow them.

      Somebody should buy ICANN some backbone and a nice baseball bat.

      • by eln ( 21727 ) on Wednesday July 22, 2009 @04:14PM (#28787891)
        ICANN gets most (all?) of its money from the registrars it's supposed to be policing. There's an inherent conflict of interest there.
      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        Shouldn't ICANN already have all the backbone it needs? Oh, wait...

    • Laws, less so.

      Unless you have good lawyers, lobbyists, or happen to be the person enforcing the law.

      • Or you just have nobody bothering to actually enforce the laws, even when it is brought to the attention of the relevant authorities.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Actually, under rule 1222.3 subsection (g), a registrar can suspend the transfer of a domain to another registrar. To do so, the suspending registrar must notify the authority via email with the subject header "ICANN haz domane tranfurr blokking?" Naturally, the duration of the transfer delay depends on the cuteness of the enclosed lolcat.

  • I'm not that familiar with the process, but don't these registrars require accreditation from ICANN to operate? If so, then ICANN has full control here. Why don't they take disciplinary action against offenders?
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by TypoNAM ( 695420 )

      Why don't they take disciplinary action against offenders?

      Too much money involved. You don't want to upset those who are feeding you money now don't you?

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by mwvdlee ( 775178 )

        You're assuming that other companies won't pick up the business left behind by a punished offender.
        Given the amount of money involved in domain names, I'm guessing ICANN can safely take disciplinary actions without losing a dime in the process.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Captain Spam ( 66120 )

          Given the amount of money involved in domain names, I'm guessing ICANN can safely take disciplinary actions without losing a dime in the process.

          Until, that is, the bit about registrars losing accreditation means customers without a techie background (or without a techie department to handle such matters) suddenly lose service to their domain names. They go to the registrar to see what's up and, instead of being given a technical/political description that they'll instantly tl;dr (note previous assertion of "customers without a techie background"), they're given the quick summary: "ICANN killed your websites"*.

          Then out come the letters to [INSERT L

          • 1. Yank the accreditation
            2. Ban further registrations
            3. Public notice of revocation
            4. 120 day grace period to effect transfers
            5. Yank the registrar

            All ICANN needs to do is give due notice to their customers and give them time to transfer.

        • They'll try. Like lots of companies making web search engines, Iphone-killers, and other exciting tools, most of them are likely to suck even worse than the current provider: they're vulnerable to the same market forces and the same sorts of middle management, short-sighted fools who helped create GoDaddy at the expense of the rest of the world.
  • by brasselv ( 1471265 ) on Wednesday July 22, 2009 @04:04PM (#28787725)

    This is something between scary and funny.

    It's like the IRS complaining because too many people don't pay due taxes.

    I'm not sure about the legal framework, but either ICANN has no way to enforce the rules (then it should refer to a different authority), or if they has such power, then go ahead and ban the guilty ones from providing the service.

    • It's a direct result of the Henhouse Guarding Committee being completely dependent on foxes for its funding and right to exist. What's stranger to me is that anyone would be the least bit surprised as to the outcome.

  • Anybody who hasn't figured that out by now needs to pay closer attention.

  • by teknopurge ( 199509 ) on Wednesday July 22, 2009 @04:07PM (#28787777) Homepage
    Those $0.99 domain registrations? Companies make their money up other places - like selling you addons, making it difficult to move, etc. Try using a smaller domain provider that has their system automated and doesn't pay people to come up with new ways to lock you in. Everything from requiring you to make other purchases after 12 months to only providing the domain registration with another pay service, that was free in the beginning. It's a shameless plug, but we do domain registration for our clients but it's more for convenience than anything.
    • by jpmorgan ( 517966 ) on Wednesday July 22, 2009 @04:11PM (#28787851) Homepage

      It's a near perfect market, in the economic sense. The barrier to entry into the registration business is almost nil, it's all just some data processing. And as economics tells us, as a market approaches 'perfection', profit margins approach 0%. So it's not surprising that some registrars are resorting to shady business practices; the only people who can make money in the registration business are those who are willing to do a little lying and cheating.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by TubeSteak ( 669689 )

        And as economics tells us, as a market approaches 'perfection', profit margins approach 0%.

        Economic (supernormal) profit approaches zero.
        Normal profits are the opportunity cost of your time/money/labor/etc.
        Since they are considered a cost, normal profits are maintained even in a perfect market at equilibrium.
        [/nitpick]

      • It's a near perfect market, in the economic sense. The barrier to entry into the registration business is almost nil, it's all just some data processing. And as economics tells us, as a market approaches 'perfection', profit margins approach 0%. So it's not surprising that some registrars are resorting to shady business practices; the only people who can make money in the registration business are those who are willing to do a little lying and cheating.

        Actually, you are illustrating that it quite far from a

    • I tried to order a domain from GoDaddy once, after clicking through six pages of crap addons at checkout I decided the marginal savings wasn't worth it and moved to NameCheap.

    • by BikeHelmet ( 1437881 ) on Wednesday July 22, 2009 @05:10PM (#28788695) Journal

      The cheapest legit Registrars I've found were just over $10. The ones cheaper than that don't offer any privacy.

      I'd never use a registrar like GoDaddy. Their privacy is totally fake - anyone can phone in and get your info.

    • by xant ( 99438 )

      "Make their money up"? You mean that onerous cost of using CPU cycles and a few bytes of bandwidth to automatically process my registration? The marginal cost of a new domain is like 0.000003 dollars.

  • Consequences (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jpmorgan ( 517966 ) on Wednesday July 22, 2009 @04:07PM (#28787779) Homepage

    ICANN needs to figure out an enforcement policy. Perhaps it should order the root servers to stop accepting new registrations from registrars not following the rules.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      ICANN needs to figure out an enforcement policy. Perhaps it should order the root servers to stop accepting new registrations from registrars not following the rules.

      But it should announce that some time before, so that innocent people registering domains know to avoid those registrars.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Eil ( 82413 )

      Good luck with that, the registrars pretty much run ICANN.

    • by rs79 ( 71822 )

      " ICANN needs to figure out an enforcement policy. Perhaps it should order the root servers to stop accepting new registrations from registrars not following the rules" "

      Nomenclatural nit: root servers contain lists of tld servers, the servers that serve up com/net/org/de/uk etc.

      You mean "tld servers" not "root servers".

      But, the real way they do this is send a letter to the registrar telling them to knock it off. If they don't they can pull their accreditation and the registrar is no longer a registrar.

      Ther

  • The whole point of the internet is that its something the private sector can sort out... but, if Godaddy and ICANN cannot sort out their differences, and with ICANN being the authority the Gov't put in charge, then, the Congress needs to take this matter up. If Godaddy wants to thumb its nose at regulatory bodies, let them do it at least before ones that can suspend their license to operate and levy fines.

    • by vertinox ( 846076 ) on Wednesday July 22, 2009 @04:24PM (#28788063)

      but, if Godaddy and ICANN cannot sort out their differences, and with ICANN being the authority the Gov't put in charge, then, the Congress needs to take this matter up

      Do you really want congress deciding who gets what web page?

      • by Fyzzle ( 1603701 )

        but, if Godaddy and ICANN cannot sort out their differences, and with ICANN being the authority the Gov't put in charge, then, the Congress needs to take this matter up

        Do you really want congress deciding who gets what web page?

        0.1% - Pat Buchanan

        The ballot was confusing.

      • and more importantly, what happens if congress actually does something? Will other nations accept it or create their own "internet"?

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Hurricane78 ( 562437 )

        Well, in face of who would decide it otherwise: HELL YES!

        At least in theory, we could replace the government. But replacing any company? Never!

    • ICANN has the power to pull accreditation. The problem is that they won't do it for the big guys. You'd better believe they would for a small company, though.

  • by unity100 ( 970058 ) on Wednesday July 22, 2009 @04:26PM (#28788123) Homepage Journal

    wait until eu commissions take the matter into their hands when there are enough complaints. they brought microsoft onto the line about browsers. they can straighten up these shit too. jurisdiction issues ? what's wto good for ? i would be happy to see godaddy taught some manners.

    • by Shatrat ( 855151 )
      More like the EU will get their cut of the money and things will continue they way they are going.
      • too american, you are. that happens in america, where senators are bought before elected.

        in no case where eu fined something, it was allowed to go as it is.

        in last stint, they ordered microsoft to rip media player from their os releases. ms didnt comply. eu started fining them 500 k euro a day. suddenly, we found microsoft who is VERY relaxed and unobliging in u.s. swiftly comply with the eu decree.

        this is how eu "rolls in the shire" baby.

  • What can ICANN actually do to enforce any rules they put into place? From reading the initial announcement it just sounds like the corporate idiots at my work who spout out "That's a violation of our company standards!!!" at our sales teams then do nothing because the sales guys are the ones who pay their salaries.

  • The most profitable moves that registrars make in violation of ICANN rules are the ones that are almost never punished. Consider all the registrations that are issued with incomplete or outright bogus registration data, and how little ICANN has done about the registrars who are repeat offenders of that.

    There is a reason why your favorite evil spamming domain has bad registration data, and there is a reason why it will stay that way.
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      And on the flipside, that evil spamming domain is pulling contact information from people who *do* have legit info in the fields. Is it any wonder why people don't want real data in their whois record?

      • by Quirkz ( 1206400 )
        No kidding. I don't see why my owning a domain means my contact information needs to be public to the world. Nor do I see why I should pay a $10 ransom to have that data made private.
      • that evil spamming domain is pulling contact information from people who *do* have legit info in the fields

        For one, I doubt that the spammers are really pulling much information from WHOIS records. Sure, they do use it, I don't see any reason to expect that they do not. However I suspect they get better returns on their time by using google to crawl through forum posts and other such things that tend to have email addresses in them.

        That said, I am sympathetic towards people who want to protect their privacy from publicly accessible WHOIS records and people who might use that information for nefarious purpos

        • by Phroggy ( 441 )

          However I suspect they get better returns on their time by using google to crawl through forum posts and other such things that tend to have email addresses in them.

          It's not their time, so they don't have to care what the returns are. Setting a botnet to pull e-mail addresses out of WHOIS doesn't cost anything except the price of renting a botnet from the Russian mafia, but they can probably find a way to get it for free.

          I do believe there is a reasonable compromise that can be made between for-profit web domains (who IMHO should be obliged to have legitimate contact information in their records) and non-profit or hobby domains (who generally I would say should be eligible for obfuscation services).

          And which of these two categories would you put spammers in?

          • It's not their time, so they don't have to care what the returns are.

            True, they don't exactly have someone at a keyboard typing in 'whois aaaaaa.com' all the way through 'whois zzzzzz.com' and dumping the results somewhere. However I don't think it is reasonable to assume the spammers to be idiots, either. They are, after all, in the business of spamming to make money so they will choose the action that is most profitable.

            Setting a botnet to pull e-mail addresses out of WHOIS doesn't cost anything except the price of renting a botnet from the Russian mafia, but they can probably find a way to get it for free.

            Probably true as well.

            However, if we assume that the spammers are fairly intelligent people - rather than assuming they are idiots - we could come to

            • by Phroggy ( 441 )

              They are, after all, in the business of spamming to make money so they will choose the action that is most profitable.

              That makes sense when you have limited resources and have to prioritize. Spammers steal other people's resources, so they do not have to prioritize; they can do it all at once. Also, since there are many spammers, one spammer might take an approach that nobody else is taking - for example, if everyone else is scraping addresses off the Web, somebody will start harvesting from whois records just because nobody else is doing it.

              ...we could come to the conclusion that they know that the email addresses in WHOIS records are likely to be amongst the more intelligent people on the internet.

              Spammers sell lists of addresses. Their buyers don't have to know where the ad

        • by sjames ( 1099 )

          Of course there's register.com's borderline fraudulent snailmail "renewal" notices.

          That and I certainly do NOT want my home phone number at the fingertips of every nut case in the world who might feel mortally offended by the particular shade of off white on my page.

  • Here's my question: This article lists some of the domain registrars that are performing shady practices, but what about a list of registrars that are playing by the rules and won't try to screw you over in some way? Or is the entire system such a mess now that there are no good ones left?

    • by rs79 ( 71822 )

      Try http://www.dynadot.com/ [dynadot.com] and verisign seem to be ok. I dunno about the rest.

    • I was referred to NearlyFreeSpeech.net [nearlyfreespeech.net] by someone on /. in one of the previous GoDaddy horror stories, and I now use them for both domain and shared hosting. They've also got a neat little service called RespectMyPrivacy [nearlyfreespeech.net] that provides a proxy contact service.

      Their customer service has been top-notch, their service is easy to use, and I've experienced maybe one or two short service outages during the past year that I've used them. The only complaint I have is that DNS resolution seems a little slow. It's not

  • They still block transfers for 60 days after a registrant's contact update,

    I *want* them to do that for my domain names. Let's face it: passwords get hacked. Even yours. If the the registrar where *YOU* am the paying customer still holds the domain name, that damage can be promptly undone. Good luck getting [random non-English registrar] to undo a stolen name without going through months and thousands of dollars with the UDRP.

    In prohibiting this behavior, ICANN expresses a confidence in the system security

  • The upside to this. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ACMENEWSLLC ( 940904 ) on Wednesday July 22, 2009 @05:35PM (#28788979) Homepage

    If you are registered with a reputable registrar...

    Say your registration for yourdomain.com expires and you've forgot about it because you were out on vacation for the last month and didn't see the e-mails.

    With Network Solutions, they will keep that expired domain around for me to renew, even after it expires. So I don't loose it to a cyber squatter.

    I've seen this with domains I've deliberately let go.

    If they aren't allowed to do this, then I'm screwed if I forget to renew one of my domains.

    I'm with the registrars on this one. It is a nice security feature.

    • by rs79 ( 71822 )

      "With Network Solutions, they will keep that expired domain around for me to renew, even after it expires. So I don't loose it to a cyber squatter. I've seen this with domains I've deliberately let go. If they aren't allowed to do this, then I'm screwed if I forget to renew one of my domains. I'm with the registrars on this one. It is a nice security feature."

      What I find interesting is the original article was about a specific not so great registrar, which quickly morphed into an all out frontal attack on

    • by sjames ( 1099 )

      ICANN will allow them to speculatively renew the domain for you, but they have to let it transfer IF the normal approval procedures are followed. They can easily block the squatters without blocking you from making the transfer. They can do that without violating any ICANN rules or policies.

  • Gandi.net: the ultimate No-Bullshit registrar, in my experience.

    Godaddy's bullshit only happens to Godaddy customers. And Godaddy customers are people who don't know how to use Google to find out who sucks and who doesn't. I'm not saying what Godaddy does is right, but it's like using Windows: if you look before you leap, you'll quickly realize how dumb leaping will be.

  • Ok, registrars are flagrantly violating ICANN rules and are thus probably in breach of their registrar contracts.

    Why the hell is ICANN not revoking the shit out of them?
    • by rs79 ( 71822 )

      Na, if you really want shame on ICANN it's for that bilderberg-clinton-bildt-dyson connection. If the tinfoil crew get hold of this they'll get anonymous to do something awful and it will make a big miss. Even the appearance of these sorts of things shouldn't exist.

      And if you're going to have a regulatory clusterfuck like ICANN manage a franchise like .com and since it seems to fit the definition of a franchise under the FTC, have them regulate it. They sorta have a legal obligation to, and they don't need

  • hmmm... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by kojikeneda ( 1603861 )
    hmmm.. sounds like someone didn't read their own links. When you change the registrant at Godaddy it asks you to confirm that you won't be able to transfer the domain name.As stated in the ICANN policy " A registrantâ(TM)s objection to transfer is not valid unless it is obtained voluntarily.". No one makes you change the registrant prior to transferring the domain name. Simply change it after you make the transfer.... duh.
  • I got an ad in the snail mail from register.com offering a free domain registration, no further commitment. However, you need to provide a credit card so they could continue billing after the first year....at a rate of about $50 per year. I had a debit card about to expire in a couple months, so I thought, great, I'll take this free domain name, transfer it somewhere cheaper within the first year, and just let nature take it's course with register.com. I had little trouble getting the authorization code
  • No enforcement (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Aceticon ( 140883 ) on Thursday July 23, 2009 @03:47AM (#28792907)

    Rules and Laws without Enforcement are not worth the paper they're written on.

  • The complaints about the big guys continue to roll in, and yet no one seems able to give me a good, trustworthy alternative that doesn't rip you off. I don't need hosting, only domain registration and SSL certs. Even the ones that some people like seem to have something shady going on- like no phone number provided (like Gandi). So, I'm still waiting... yes the big guys are bad, but that's all we have it seems. Which is why they can get away with it.

  • I registered skyleach.com in the 90s (forget the exact year now) but when I tried to move it to a cheaper registrar my transfer was denied and my domain was locked. Of course, since it had some decent traffic, espcially surrounding anything conerning battletech, it was purchased out from under me. A squatter has been sitting on it since.

    The practice is anticompetative and dishonest and should be stepped on, HARD.

    -SL

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