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Pre-Selling Domain Names?
Allnighterking asks: "Within the last 24 hours I've been the unwitting victim of a new practice by any number of domain registrars. The concept of pre-selling domain names before they expire. Go to any of the more popular domain registrars and start searching for domain names. You will find dozens of them for sale -with the date they will expire clearly listed-. In my case yes, I was negligent in not renewing. I also did not receive notice that it was to expire either. The day after it expired (or more like 8 hours after). I found out that I was no longer the owner of a domain I've owned for over 3 years, that this domain is now the 'property' of a domain squatter selling google adds on my hard earned search engine status. What can be done? Do we have any recourse?"
"Perhaps this is just another case of ICANN , you can't.
Apparently, the sale of expired domains is big business. See this google search for more. It leaves one to wonder what would have happened a few years ago when Hotmail expired. Would Microsoft have been stuck? Or would they be doing what I've been asked to do: pony up 20k to get my domain back!"
Apparently, the sale of expired domains is big business. See this google search for more. It leaves one to wonder what would have happened a few years ago when Hotmail expired. Would Microsoft have been stuck? Or would they be doing what I've been asked to do: pony up 20k to get my domain back!"
Lesson learned the hard way.
Register your domain with a reputable registrar, one that either auto-renews or reliably tells you when it's about to expire, and you won't have any problems.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
But be realistic - you were notified that the domain was expiring. You failed to act within what is now a very generous expiration window.
Really... the last thing expiring domains need is one more "last-chance" for the people who fail to pay for their domain. The best solution, if you're really worried about keeping a name, is to buy a five or ten-year claim.
Develop a browser plugin that when entering a domain it will check the history of ownership for that domain. If the domain is under dispute, give the user the option to choose with which owner they wish to view, the current or previous. You control the database of what owners are fighting over what and technically it sounds as simple as modifying the hosts file.
The trick is to get it popular enough. The goal here is not to propigate this function on your own but get microsoft excited enough to steal the whole concept and wrap it in their latest browser. Now that tabbed browsing is finally being included who knows what comes next?
Our business name is "ICW International" and they stole icwinternational.com from us by refusing to let us pay to renew it, even before it expired. Now it's still under their ownership, but they've turned it into ads. Their phone support has refused to help us. They'll give it back for several hundred $, but they've cost us a great deal more over their rotten, criminal business practices.
I believe there's a Federal law prohibiting squatting. That is, if you either have a trademark or lose a site, then you can buy the domain name for the regular registration site. This was a big deal a few years back.
What those who want activist courts fear is rule by the people.
When you let your domain name expire, somebody else took it. Whether it was "pre-sold" or not, you still let it expire... what did you think was going to happen? Why would you expect to have any recourse, exactly?
Comment of the year
found out that I was no longer the owner of a domain I've owned for over 3 years, that this domain is now the 'property' of a domain squatter selling google adds on my hard earned search engine status.
Not that this is going to make you feel any better, or help out in any way, but you never *owned* the domain name in the first place. IMO that's one of the major problems with the way the registry is set up in the first place.
If you own a trademark to the name you may (and I stress may) be able to get it back, or at least keep others from using the name (take it to arbitration???) but, from the sound of it, you're probably SOL.
Microsoft would pony up a LOT more than 20K to get Hotmail back ... and/or spend that much on lawyers too.
The best solution, if you're really worried about keeping a name, is to buy a five or ten-year claim.
When I first got my domains, I was lucky to keep them renewed on time (money was that short!). Now I keep them renewed so they never have less than a year before expiration. I'll probably up that soon, too.
I also have them registered through Directnic, which has gotten a lot of publicity recently because of their ability to stay online throughout the entire Katrina situation. They've treated me well and start notifying me 60-90 days before expiration.
Unfortunately, there isn't a lot that can be done about this. Most domain registrars no longer send out notices when your domain is about to expire. To make things worse, if your information (contact info, etc) in the registrars database is incorrect they may cancel your domain within 15 days if you don't respond to their notice. I've read that ICANN started requiring registrars to contact customers yearly regarding domain status, but this doesn't seem to be enforced.
... yours.
As far as what you can do, I suppose the going rate for bulk prevention is still about 16 times that of bulk cure.
Try to keep track of domain names and expiration dates. Consider consolidating domains if you own more than one. Renew early and/or for a longer time period. If nothing else, search the net and try to buy a domain
Verify the owner information with the registrar. For businesses the corporate owner or other company personnel should be listed as the domain owner. (NOT the company name or the name of an outside web designer) Remember this is the person who will be authorized to make changes, renew, etc.
Make sure that you're getting the registrar's emails. Don't give the registrar an email address you may not have in a few years. Add the registrar's domain to your email account's no spam list.
Oh and one more thing: Send a nasty email to your domain registrar from a throwaway email account. That ALWAYS works.
... IMHO, of course.
I'll say it again, a domain name is NOT intellectual property. Owning it is NOT the same as owning a trademark, it is not protected by any laws, and if you loose it you have no recourse. Everybody including google seems to think the opposite, but the law indicates otherwise. If you loose it, you loose it, and as long as contractual responsibilities of managing it are honored, if you don't renew you are fucked. Nobody put in your contract they have to notify you 30 days prior to expiration, did they?
Had you bothered to even just read the write-up, you'd have seen:
That's one of your arguments out of the window.
Second, with pre-selling expiring domains, and no expiry-notification (although you could keep track of it yourself, probably), buying a 5 to 10 year claim only means you have a chance of losing your domain after 5 or 10 years, as opposed to the submitters 3 years. So I fail to see how this will resolve anything.
a horrible place
of which you speak?
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Most registrars have an option to auto-renew your domain. Problem solved.
Trolling is a art,
"this domain is now the 'property' of a domain squatter selling google adds on my hard earned search engine status."
HA!!
If your domain was so important you would have paid attention and not let it expire.
I'm trying to purchase a domain from a domain squatter. He's just putting up a GoDaddy ForSale sign, but he doesn't know the first thing about selling a domain. I've offered him $300, which I think is a fair price, but he's holding out for a multithousand dollar offer, which is extremely doubtful, considering the domain name. (not posting the domain name so he isn't warned) Anyway, to keep On Topic, try using Snapnames.com to retrieve the domain when it expires, or try suing them. There is a law (see below link) that bans cybersquatting: http://www.gigalaw.com/library/anticybersquattinga ct-1999-11-29-p1.html
Here is a quote from an excellent article from Mike Davidson's Blog where he talking about how domain names expire:
"Contrary to popular belief, domains do not expire when they say they do. If the owner of a domain does not renew by the expiration date of the domain, the domain goes into "expired" status. For 40 days, the domain is in a grace period where all services are shut off, but the domain owner may still renew the domain for a standard renewal fee. If a domain enters this period, it is a good first indicator that it may not be renewed, but since the owner can re-register without penalty, it can also just be a sign of laziness or procrastination.
After 40 days are up, the domain's status changes to "redemption period". During this phase, all WhoIs information begins disappearing, and more importantly, it now costs the owner an additional fee to re-activate and re-register the domain. The fee is currently around $100, depending on your registrar. When a domain enters its redemption period, it's a good bet the owner has decided not to renew.
Finally, after the redemption period, the domain's status will change to "locked" as it enters the deletion phase. The deletion phase is 5 days long, and on the last day between 11am and 2pm Pacific time, the name will officially drop from the ICANN database and will be available for registration by anybody."
Look, buddy, I hate to be cavalier about it, because I totally empathize. I let a domain expire about 2 years ago, and was lucky enough to be able to renew it. But honestly, it's your fault, just as it was mine then. It's really not much different than getting your car towed: had you remembered to put change in the meter, you'd be fine, but since you didn't you now have to pay a REALLY exhorbitant amount to get your car back.
Since my episode, I switched to godaddy.com (I am not affiliated, just a happy customer). Godaddy emails me at 90, 60, 30, 15, 10, and 5 days until expiration, and even has an auto-renew option so my domains renew themselves.
Definitely check them out.
It is not in the public interest to have advertising companies doing this. Such companies do little to no public good and a certain amount of public harm in their normal course of operations by wasting resources. They do considerably more harm in these cases. It would be ideal to do structural changes to DNS to make their model of business unprofitable or undoable, or legal changes to make it illegal. As a lesser solution, perhaps practices like this should be illegal or prohibited.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
I had several bad experiences with netsol. A friend suggested mapname.com. After some investigation I transferred my domains over.
It is amazing how many warnings you get from them as your domain names get close to expiring. They start warning you months before it expires and fairly frequently as the expiration date gets close.
The guys that run it are responsive and actually take tech support seriously.
There is usually some kind of sale going on, and you can also buy multiple "credits" at a discounted price.
Obviously YMMV.
Invalid Checksum. Retrying.
Yeah, I let a couple of mine slip into expired status, then into Redeemtion status, now eNom want $160 per domain to get them back. I suspect someone put in a bid somewhere for the domains. They haven't started squatting yet, but you just know they won't release them back into the public pool when there's money to be made.
I let them expire as I don't really need them anymore, plus eNom's prices are a rip-off at $30 p/a, or $30 to transfer out. All my other domains are with another provider for $15 p/a, who just so happen to be an eNom reseller, so you just know it doesn't cost eNom that much.
John.
I had similar problems with a registrar a couple of years ago. I didn't receive any notice of expiration and when it expired, they asked me to pay a 200 USD charge for reactivation... After some discussion, I could renew the domain for the normal price and as soon as I could I changed to another registrar, where all my domains are kept safe today, with many notices of their expiration dates.
You admit to letting your domain name registration expire. Where's the pre-selling?
As for those wondering where to find a good registrar, I have a small personal web site with Digital Space with domain names registered through them. When the registration comes up for expiration I get email notice at 90, 60, and 30-days before the expiration date.
Seriously, OP needs to grow up. Don't pay your mortgage, the bank might take your house. Don't pay your registration, the registrar might take your domain name. This ain't rocket science.
yes, it also was Network Solutions, and I had to fax in a copy of my drivers license to get them to change their info.
Since then I haven't had a problem with them.
The only issue would be if you were NOT listed as ANY of the contacts (tech, admin or registrant). And in that case, I wouldn't let you change anything either.
I receive a lot of snail-mail deceptive advertising from register.com, and I would never use them.
Godaddy works for me, and is less than a third of the price. They are the largest domain registrar out there now, and I don't worry about my domains at all.
Network Solutions is the devil.
Man, I sort of want to snark all over this poor guy for using a shady registrar and getting shafted, but can we have a moment here, please? Does anyone remember the old, old days of, say, 1994?
Back when the internet was just this weird old place full of academics, old-school hacker types, weird "cyberspace" early adopters and the few commerical institutions who had some kind of online presence were seen as strange little furry mammals slinking around in the shadows not bothering anybody? When you actually e-mailed the guys at Cantor and Segal for misuing the internet, and thought it might work?
Now it's all hucksters and fraud.
Anyone remember those days? Can I get a "where have all the flowers gone"?
Protect your liberties. Donate to the ACLU
GoDaddy is not trustworthy, it seems to me. It seems to me that GoDaddy makes most of its money by exploiting the lack of technical knowledge of most of its customers. The GoDaddy web site is so fully of ads that it is sometimes difficult to understand how to buy from them.
GoDaddy's web site is often slow. For example, as I type this it is very slow. GoDaddy wants to be a web hosting provider. Can you imagine choosing a host with a slow web site?
I agree with you about register.com.
Can anyone recommend a reliable, honest, not-sneaky registrar?
Well, I came from netsol. Netsol has just as many ads you have click through, except that they are deceptive. More than once I accidently signed up for their DNS service becuase i didn't correctly answer "Do you not want us to not host DNS for you?" Yes[] No[]
Godaddy has a lot of ads, and probably terrible support - but that's the trade off when you want to pay $8/year. And I've never had to contact support. When you buy a domain they even have "expert" links that'll skip all that crap.
Of course godaddy's web hosting is probably crappy. I don't see what that has to do with their registrar service.
Directnic is awesome. I get messages at (I think) 60, 30, 15, 7 days and probably more when an expiration is coming up. (I've never let it get further.) From their FAQ:
Q: When I buy a domain, who owns it?
A: If you purchase a domain in your own directNIC account, you are the owner (registrant) of the domain during the registration. directNIC is your registrar. You have the total control of your domain name and you can make modifications, transfers, or sell the domain name at any time during your registration. The Organization contact you choose for the domain will be displayed in WHOIS as the registrant of the domain.
Please be aware that the administrative contact of the domain has the administrative control of the domain. In addition, the owner of the account where the domain is located also has power to manage the domain. This happens when you ask someone else to register the domain for you. You are listed as the owner of the domain but the reseller places the domain in his/her account instead of your own account.
After the domain expires, you will be given 40 days grace period to renew the domain. If you do not renew the domain within the 40 days, you will lose the ownership of the domain.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
The best solution, if you're really worried about keeping a name, is to buy a five or ten-year claim.
That's a two-edged sword - 10 years from now that domain won't auto-renew on your [long since expired] credit card, and when the card has expired twice in the interim you might not think to go update the details on the registrar's site.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
The only real fix is to take away the financial incentive of domain squatting. Why is Google supporting this? It only makes the problem worse. Isn't it the tiniest bit evil?
I've been with GoDaddy for years. Really that's all I need, I handle the DNS and hosting myself. I just need them to hold onto my .com and leave me alone about it.
NetSol does have free DNS hosting with every domain, but for $50 a year I think it's a bit excessive when ZoneEdit does it for $10.95 per domain (and much less for multiple domains).
Like everything in the compute industry, the price depends on how much hand-holding you want.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
I highly recommend them. Great prices, great value for all the features and low-level control you get, auto-renew, whois privacy protection, and the site isn't plastered with confusing ads. Their tech support isn't bad either. YMMV, but I switched all three of my domains to them, and it's been great so far.
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
I didn't say this ... but ... you hit the nail on the head. But note that having an ethical registrar won't protect you. Want proof? Try this technic go to go-daddy, or almost any other registrar. Search for a domain you own. (or one you know will never get lost... hopefully like slashdot.org) They will for 18.95 or there about, SELL you a lottery ticket. That lottery ticket says that if this domain every goes on the market we will try to registar it immediately for you. (kind of like auto bids on e-bay) Now if they are the registrar of record for that domain then they know that they will have the inside track on ensuring that one of the people who they sold a ticket to gets the prize.
Now riddle me this. Which one is more valuable? A 6.95 renewal or an 18.95 lottery ticket.
I'm sorry, I'm to tired to be witty at the moment so this message will have to do.
then wouldn't it be practically impossible for a cyber squatter to snatch a domain that is actually in use? If "all services are shut off" doesn't that mean that the website and/or email will cease?
But be realistic - you were notified that the domain was expiring. You failed to act within what is now a very generous expiration window.
No I was not notified. Not a peep. Normally I would expect that the day of expiration, they would "cut me off" then I would have the 42 days to rebuy. (as outlined in the agreement I clicked to 3 years ago) Nope 12 midnight on the 18th of Sept 2004 I was cut off and at 8am on the 19th of Sept 2004, when I woke up and tried to get mail etc..... Someone else owned my domain.
The actually experation was apparently 6 Aug 2005 and I had no indication that this domain was up. (I've about 50 I keep track of. Of course mine slipped. The others are all now with another registrar.)
I'm sorry, I'm to tired to be witty at the moment so this message will have to do.
I use SnapNames for this-- you only pay if you get the domain name, and you can have a standing order forever. They actually snagged me a name that I had been wanting and had been dormant for a while. I now have all my domains set up to get grabbed by SnapNames in the unlikely event that I manage to overlook all the expiration warnings and things. SnapNames uses a bunch of different registrars (I suspect depending on the responsiveness of their site at the instant the domain goes up for grabs).
.org name away from them, because they and Melbourne both pointed at each other as being responsible for providing the Auth code for the transfer. Melbourne was easy to get ahold of by email and phone, and tried to be helpful. Yahoo is a pain to get ahold of, but eventually it got transferred. Definitely avoid resellers (which yahoo is) and go directly with a primary registrar. Resellers just add a complication layer.
When SnapNames did get me a name, they registered it through BlueHill (who I hadn't heard of). A while later I decided to consolidate all my domains in one place, and BlueHill was actually the most responsive with the transfer request.
I had also made the mistake of registering some domains through Yahoo a long time ago-- a major pain to transfer the
Right now all my domains are with Godaddy (except for one with Netsol that I'll probably move away soon), but if they get difficult, BlueHill was responsive enough that I would try them.
here is an article (in German - Google Translation) about a Trojan that is used to do distributed checks whether >12,000 well known domains have become "free" on various WhoIs databases. Which are then taken over within minutes and used to promote (porno-)dialers and the trojan.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Take some personal responsibility and figure out when all of your domains expire. I've heard this 'whois' thing-a-ma-bob works wonders.
Then put the dates on your calendar and remind yourself a month ahead of time.
When you get reminded, renew your registration.
Done.
I mean, if your domain name is important enough that you will miss it when it's gone, you shouldn't be leaving it in the hands of anybody else.
My father is a blogger.
Domains should be like cars. How is that? Well you buy a car, but it has to be registered with some authority inorder for you to drive it down the street, or in most places even in the back woods for that matter.
Even if that registration expires you still own it, however in most places your now required to remove it from public streets. Even sitting in front of your house its illegal to have it on a public street.
Domains should be the same way, you own it from the moment its created. Registration is just the way that you make it legal for public view.
I somehow think that this might have even been the original intent...ICANN and Netsol perverted it in the name of profit.
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
And EveryDNS will do it for $0.
As will several other places.
http://blog.grcm.net/
GoDaddy are also reported to terminate your domain on any complaint, and charge you hundreds of dollars to get it back. Even if that complaint is entirely frivolous. I've never used GoDaddy for various other reasons, but that's the reason I'd never consdier them.
I use tucows to manage my domains. Works great, but the setup overhead probably isn't worth it for fewer than ten to fifteen domains.
If you want an honest, full service registrar you're probably going to have to pay more than bargain basement prices. There are a bunch of those around, including many of the corenic resellers. I've had mostly good experiences with netwiz in the past.
things to say of their support
except for hosting.
They are quick to help
with most problems, though I now
host my sites elsewhere.
The shared IP of
hosted sites leads to being
RBLed sometimes.
Other than that, and
their awful website design,
I recommend them.
You have the absolute RIGHT to retrieve your domain name for at least 65 days after it expires, more like 75 days. It might cost you a redemption fee but you have the RIGHT.
Demand your RIGHTS under the agreement your registrar has with ICANN.
They cannot take your property 8 hours after it expires.
It expires and becomes available for registration by another person after the redemption period expires. It is not the property of your registrar, even though they would like that.
.
I think in the UK, Nominet's dispute policy covers domain squatters and they don't hardly ever go in favour of squatters. Maybe the same applies with ICANN contact them and report it and see how it goes from there.
Michael-m.co.uk - Home of Michael Mulqueen
Don't trust the parent poster's advise. The URL contains a referral link. Possible conflict of interest.
There is, it's called the 1999 Anti-CyberSquatting Act, or the more official name of Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, or the even more official name of S.1948 Intellectual Property and Communications Omnibus Reform Act of 1999.
Too bad it doesn't cover the current scheme of patent squatting being rampantly performed by some companies with the excuse that they are doing it "defensively." Or does it? IANAL, but if it applies to names and marks maybe it could be applied to patents as well since the industry constantly uses the catch-all term of "Intellectual Property" to refer to several different things. Well, if that flawed terminology is going to be allowed to reign supreme in the industry, then maybe this law could be applied against all kinds of IP and used to challenge patents as well, when the patents are cyber-patents and little more than a "name for a domain of knowledge" in patent clothing?