By Elliot Noss, President & CEO, Tucows
The outcry over RegisterFly has generated a lot of discussion about the regulation and oversight of registrars. (A domain name registrar is a company accredited by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to register Internet domain names. Tucows is an accredited registrar.) In our view, much of the furor and finger pointing is missing the point. The interests of the businesses and individuals who buy domain names have been lost in this debate. There are a whole raft of existing rules and policies, defined by ICANN, that govern how the domain name registration system should work. The problem is that the people who buy domain names (formally known as registrants) are not familiar with the rules and do not know how to help themselves.
The bad news in this is that fixing how registrars are regulated and, more importantly, how the existing rules are enforced, will take some more work, especially on the part of ICANN. In the meantime, registrants need to change the way they think about who supplies them Internet services. They will need to stop focusing on price and start focusing on customer service, the services offered and increase their awareness of the rights that the existing rules give them.
Domain names are valuable intangible assets and are central to a registrant's use of the Internet. We wanted to try and help folks out by providing a set of guidelines that are intended to help registrants make good decisions for themselves. This guide is not intended to be exhaustive, but is written as if a close friend has asked us for advice. Here are the 10 questions everyone should ask a registrar before buying a domain name from them. We don’t expect registrants to necessarily dig in to all of them, but it is a place to start.
1. What is your primary business model?
This is an interesting one and needs a bit of context to explain. All major registrars used to earn money in a very similar way. They were mostly in the business of selling retail Internet services. A few, Tucows included, provided mostly wholesale Internet services to Web hosting companies and ISPs. Over time, some started to specialize in catering to large corporations who registered domains in many different countries and to other, narrower, segments. With the massive growth in direct navigation (when Internet users type their desired destination directly into the browser address bar) and the secondary market (domain owners buying and selling domains directly) things have changed. Many registrars now make more money from ads on domains in their portfolios, auctioning names and selling names in this secondary market than they do from registration fees for new domain names. Some make much more from those sources.
That is not bad in and of itself, but it might influence how they implement services like a redemption grace period.
Recommendation: Understand what business your registrar is in, and also understand who owns them and what business they are in.
2. Do you make transfers as easy as the rules allow?
Domain name portability (or “registrar transfers”) has been a source of contention in the domain registration industry from the onset of competition. For years large incumbents, at the time primarily Network Solutions the old monopoly, made it difficult for registrants to transfer their registrations to competing registrars. Since 1999, Tucows has spent thousands of people hours in both customer service and at a policy level to effect change. As a result, domain name transfer policy is now much more proscribed, much more predictable and much easier to effect.
Unfortunately, some registrars still make transferring a domain difficult. An example would be by requiring 60 days following a change of ANY contact data before a transfer can be made (another is discussed in 3 below). Thus, if you want to move to a new registrar and need to change the administrative contact email address in order to approve the transfer and do it 55 days before expiry you will not be allowed to transfer for an additional 60 days. Of course at that point your domain expired five days ago and you are at the mercy of the registrars grace period policy which often does not allow transfers only renewal of names.
Policies like this have the effect of confusing registrants and in some cases even result in people losing their names (especially if combined with short grace periods and quick triggers for auctions).
As a customer, I tend to look favorably on companies who make it easy to change services. I take that as having confidence in their ability to keep me as a customer on merit alone.
Recommendation: Understand all the rules and restrictions concerning transfers that your registrar employs. If you find them too restrictive perhaps it is a sign to keep shopping for another registrar.
3. Do you allow for easy locking/unlocking?
Domain names can be locked to ensure no changes are made to either the contact information or to the settings. This is a useful feature, however many registrars have used the locking function as a form of lock-in! They do this by locking ALL names and making the ability to unlock obscure and/or difficult. If combined with long customer service queues, limited documentation, and poor email support a domain locked by a registrar can have the effect of making changes and transfers nearly impossible.
Recommendation: Make sure you know whether your registrar locks names and if they do, how to unlock them.
4. Do you make it easy to opt-out of auto-renewals?
Auto-renew can be very useful. Well-intended registrars provide auto-renew functionality to give registrants peace-of-mind. Just “set it and forget it”. This works when the registrant is in control.
However, some registrars set all their accounts to auto-renew by default. In certain situations like monthly billing, this may be the right choice for a registrant. The problem with auto-renew comes when you don't want to renew the domain name or you want to change registrars or when it is set too early in the renewal process.
Recommendation: Find out if your registrar offers auto-renew, what their default setting is, and how to change it if you want.
5. Do you tie domains to your services?
Some registrars use domain names as a loss leader to upsell other services. There’s nothing wrong with that as long as you can easily change any and all relevant information to what you want it to be. If you want to change where your nameservers point you should be able to change them. If you want to re-point the mx record controlling your email, you should be able to.
Most importantly, does the Registrar let you change the contact information on your whois record to whatever you want? With the exception of possibly the technical contact there is no excuse for not letting you change the information on record to whatever you choose. And remember, in many respects the administrative contact is the most important contact in the mix. Make sure you set it to who you want it to be.
Historically, many web hosting companies and ISPs set all the contact information to their own and handled all of the administration for generally confused registrants. Many still do and overwhelmingly they do so appropriately. Others, however, do not.
Recommendation: Ask about and understand any restrictions on changing contact information.
6. Do you offer Whois privacy? What are your privacy policies in general?
Whois privacy is much discussed with the whole RegisterFly mess. Whois privacy is a service offered by registrars who act as an intermediary to protect the personal information required when registering a domain. And it is generally a good service some registrants will want to use. Does your registrar offer it? If they do, how much do they charge? Many registrars charge more for whois privacy than they charge for the domain name registration itself.
What are their privacy policies, and perhaps more importantly, what is their practice when enquiries are made? Registrars diverge wildly in how they treat incoming requests for information or complaints.
Recommendation: Understand what both the policies and the practices of your registrar are with respect to whois privacy and privacy policy in general.
7. What are your policies on compliance issues like litigation, ownership disputes and WDRP?
There are a number of compliance issues that can effect domain names. Does your registrar have a dedicated compliance department? Will they inform you of a dispute? Will they help you understand what your rights and responsibilities are? Recent examples, have also called into light how registrars respond to court-orders and requests from law enforcement. The practices of registrars vary widely here and are central to your ownership.
Recommendation: Know your registrar’s policies and practices with respect to compliance issues and how you contact the compliance department.
8. How easy is it to contact you?
How easy is it to find the contact information for customer support? Many online businesses focus on making it easy to buy their services but MUCH more difficult to obtain support for them.
Recommendation: Try and find the contact email addresses and phone numbers BEFORE buying.
9. What happens when my domain expires?
Every registrar has a grace period after the actual expiry of a domain name. The timing of when names “drop” is extremely important in figuring out how much room you have to make mistakes. It used to be that almost every registrar offered a 40-45 day grace period and after that an ICANN-mandated 30-day Redemption Grace Period (”RGP”). During RGP the name was more expensive to redeem (usually $100-150) and could only be redeemed by the registrant, but at least you could still get it back.
With the growth in what’s called the domain name aftermarket this has changed significantly. Fewer and fewer domain names are “dropping” or becoming available for re-registration on the open market. These days, grace periods have shortened for many registrars and what happens during this period has changed. Virtually every major registrar now either auctions names when they expire or takes the names they want from the pool of expiring names for their own portfolio (or some combination of both). The important thing to understand is how registrars do it and when do they do it.
Recommendation: Find a registrar that provides at least a 40 day grace period and that respects an actual or implied RGP for 30 days after that. In other words, you should not irrevocably lose your name for at least 70 days after the expiry date.
10. Are you a registrar or reseller?
This is often misunderstood. A registrar has been accredited by ICANN. Resellers purchase domain names from registrars for their customers.
In our view, dealing with a reseller is often preferable to dealing with a registrar directly, especially if you are buying a bundle of services like email or a web hosting package and even if you are just buying a domain name for use with services at a later date. By the way, any small business or individual will be buying a domain name to use on some level with other Internet services making the distinction between reseller and registrar somewhat artificial. What you really need to look for is a quality supplier of Internet services that you can trust and who helps make using Internet services easier.
Recommendation: If using a domain name reseller, simply make sure that you understand all of the above policies as provided by the registrar with whom they choose to do business.
Summary
The domain name business continues to change. Despite evolving business models, we believe registrant rights deserve to be front and center.
Our suggestions:
- Make sure you know how domain expirations work. Getting a domain back after it has expired is increasingly difficult and costly.
- Know how to lock and unlock your domain so you can make changes if needed. Also take a look at transfer policies, and make sure they are reasonable and easy to understand.
- Before you hand over your credit card, understand how a registrar’s auto-renew works. You should be able to stop an auto-renewal if you don’t want to hold on to a domain name.
- Make sure you’re working with a reputable registrar or reseller who is in the primary business of providing services to businesses or consumers. Make sure you can find their contact information and privacy and compliance policies.
- Ask people you trust who they use to register domain names and find out if they have ever had to have the supplier help them with problems. Often, “I use xyz and have never had a problem”, means just that, they have never had to DEAL with a problem. It is when problems arise that the difference between a good and bad supplier becomes clear.
By doing your research you may be able to protect a valuable asset – your domain name.
One of our core values at Tucows and OpenSRS is that the Internet is the greatest agent for positive change the world has ever seen. And we strongly believe that open source tools are central to the continued growth and health of the Internet.
