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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!"
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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.