10 things you must know

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10 things you MUST know before youregister domain with anyone.

The following article was a piece we originally wrote for a marketing page we put up

at DomainWarning.com (http://www.domainwarning.com/) — but we found that a lot of our

customers wanted us to keep a copy right here on the website because they were

constantly referring their friends and colleagues to it.

Suf5ce it to say,easyDNS does not engage in any of the tactics described below, but they are

widely used across the industry.

General practice tricks1. “Transfer-out” fees

Buried in the fine print of a registrars’ “Terms of Service” will be a hidden fee authorizingthem to charge your credit card a “transfer-out” fee if you move your domain to anotherregistrar. Often times, this transfer-out fee is 2 or 3 times the cost of the originalregistration.

This practice violates the ICANN policy on domain transfers. In most cases if this happens

10 Things you MUST know https://www.easydns.com/10-things-to-know-before-you-register/

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to you a simple call to your credit card company will have the charge reversed, if younotice. Registrars who use this practice play the numbers game as many will not.

2. The fine print from hell

Most people (read: nobody) actually reads the long, odious Terms of Service for anythingthey buy online. Some registrars bury truly chilling things in these terms like theaforementioned “transfer-out” fees and in one mind-boggling case a “power-of-attorney”.

3. “Pay-as-you-go”

This is where you make a multi-year interest-free loan to the registrar. It works like this:You register a domain with them for example, 5 years (perhaps to obtain a discountedrate), you expect your domain name to be registered for 5 years. Think again, someregistrars will pay the registry for 1 year and pocket the rest of your money.

Then for the rest of your five year term they’ll renew each year for one year. Usually this iscoupled with a strict “no-refunds” policy, so an odd situation occurs: they stand to makemore money from your original registration if they lose you as a customer before your full 5years are up, so providing poor service to the point where you leave actually adds to theirbottom line.

You can use a Free whois lookup tool (http://www.easywhois.com/) like EasyWhois(http://www.easywhois.com/) to verify the real expiration date for your domain. It shouldmatch up with the number of years you paid your registrar for.

Whois database scams4. Whois edit fees and locks

Every time you register a domain name, the details of that domain registration must bepublished in a publicly accessible database called Whois (http://www.easywhois.com/).

One of the functions a registrar is supposed to be providing to you is the ability to changethose whois records. Some registrars (especially the bargain basement outfits) register yourdomain for a dirt-cheap price and then ding you with an “administration fee” when you wantto edit your Whois record.

Some others may also “lockdown” your domain for 60 days everytime you make an edit toyour record, preventing you from moving the name out to another registrar.

5. Premium whois privacy services

Because your domain record is public for all to see, some registrars want to upsell you to“privacy services” or “whois masking”, “private registration”, where they put their own infoin the whois record instead of yours.

The important thing to know here is that in the eyes of the domain Registry to which all theRegistrars interact, and the Registry’s oversight body (like ICANN, or in Canada, CIRA),whoever is listed in the domain whois record as the domain Registrant is the legal owner ofthe domain name. Keep that in mind, if you use a service like this, they own the domain,not you, notwithstanding whatever contract or Terms of Service you enter into with themto “own” this name on your behalf. If it lands in a dispute proceeding it will be an open andshut case: they own the name.

Taking it one step further, some “privacy” services will get you to sign up for the whoisprivacy service and then they turn around and happily offer to sell your true data toanybody else who cares to pay for it.


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6. Mining whois and domain slamming

Because all the data is there for the taking, spammers and marketers “mine” the whoisdatabase and harvest registrant data including addresses, fax numbers and emailaddresses. This is a real problem, and there have been very slow moving Whois databasereform processes creeping through ICANN as well as CIRA in Canada.

In the meantime though, people may wonder why is it that shortly after they register adomain name, they start getting all kinds of marketing spam in their mailbox. This isbecause their email address is being harvested by robots from the Whois database. There isa free service to protect your email address called MyPrivacy.ca(http://www.myprivacy.ca/).

The variation on this is some registrars (and there is one outfit who is particularly notoriousfor this) which is mining the whois database for registrant information, and then mailing outwhat look like renewal invoices for either those domain names or variations of them.

Unsuspecting recipients think they’ve received a renewal invoice on their domain and thenremit payment, initiating a domain transfer without realizing it. Surprise, you’ve beenslammed. In the worst cases your website and email comes crashing down as your DNSservices terminate with your old provider.

Domain lock-in (a.k.a You can check out anytime youlike, but you can never leave.7. The registrar-lock

There has historically been a real problem with “domain slamming” (see above) andunauthorized domain transfers, so the “registrar-lock” was created to protect a domainagainst this. If the registrar lock is set, nobody can transfer your domain away from you.This is actually a good thing and best practices include having this set for all your domains.The sharper registrars enable it by default when they register or transfer a domain for you.

Alas, this lock can become a real problem for you if it is turned on and the registrar will notturn it off, or give you the ability to turn it on or off yourself.

8. The domain auth-code

Some of the Top-Level-Domains (TLDs) run on a protocol called “EPP” and to further guardagainst unauthorized transfers, a domain must have an 8-character auth-code suppliedbefore it will transfer. Current examples are .BIZ, .INFO and .ORG. The current or “losing”registrar holds this code. You need it if you want to move your domain away. Hopefully theywill give it to you.

Traffic and monetization scams9. Domain parking

You may not know this, but domain parking is big business. You know, when you click on alink somewhere or make a typo entering a web address and you wind up on some crapola“search page” optionally throwing up a million pop-up ads? That is a parked domain and thelarger players can park thousands of domains and make literally millions of dollars“monetizing” them via domain parking.

You know who has access to thousands of domains? Domain registrars. Some of them offerdomain registrations and rock bottom prices just so they can monetize the parked names.This may not bother you, but some people don’t realize they’re paying for something theirregistrar then uses to generate more revenue for themselves.

(Update: since the time of writing one registrar in particular rolled out a “Make money from


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LATEST TWEETS

@datachick easydns. Canadian company,awesome service.by iiddbbjjoorrhh ((IIaann BBjjoorrhhoovvddee)) @ 2015-04-17 22:23:47

your domains’ parked pages” initiative, which surprised me since I knew them to be one ofthe biggest parked page monetizers around — they make millions per month monetizingtheir customers’ parked domains — until I looked at the details: Packages start at3.99/month. They are actuallycharging their customers for domain parking monetization.What audacity. If you actually have a domain that’s actually worth something parked, takeit to a parking service (http://www.namedrive.com/?ref=v4686c). They pay you to parkyour pages. Not the other way around).

10. “Free” URL Forwarding

Some people may wonder why the price ranges vary so much for domain registrations andwhat the difference is between somebody who offers everything but the kicthen sink for$2/year while others charge more than 10 times that much for basic DNS and URLforwarding.

Well the low cost one often has other tricks up their sleeve for making money, either byadding your domain to their parked pool (above) or in this case, they offer “free” URLforwarding for your domain, and then sell pop-up or pop-under advertisements on yourdomain. You know, those things people like so much.

ConclusionThere are many gotcha’s in the arcane and Kafkaesque world of domain name registrations.There is no free lunch, the rock bottom priced domain registrar has other plans to boosttheir revenues and at the end of the day a good rule of thumb is….

You get what you pay forSo if you want to register your domain with a registrar who doesn’t play any of thesegames, a domain registrar who:

never hides any fees1.

pays the registry for the same number of years you order, up front2.

gives you direct, unfettered access to your whois records, your registrar locks, yourauth codes and even total control over your domain’s DNS settings like hostnamerecords, mail exchangers and nameservers

3.

offers a free whois email privacy service and will never sell your data to a third party4.

who doesn’t “monetize” your domains5.

a domain registrar who answers the phone and basically doesn’t try to upsell you orsell you a bunch of services you don’t need or want, who is courteous, professionaland has over 12 years experience providing rock solid domain and DNS services…

6.


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Why We Will Not Be Registering easyDNS.SUCKS(http://blog.easydns.org/2015/04/10/why-we-will-not-be-registering-easydns-sucks/)

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(https://t.co/W6mjdDvVEB)

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Domain registrar@easyDNS blastsextortion business

model of ".sucks" and will not register them. | http://t.co/NgAnZDBPLuby SSwwiiffttOOnnSSeeccuurriittyy ((IInnffooSSeecc TTaayylloorr SSwwiifftt)) @ 2015-04-1210:47:19

EasyDNS explainswhy the only trulyuseful .sucks

domain would be dotsucks (dot) sucks --http://t.co/RhM7L9x16cby ddaannggiillllmmoorr ((DDaann GGiillllmmoorr)) @ 2015-04-11 20:17:06

QUICK LINKS

Webmail Login (https://webmail.easymail.ca/)

System / Network Status (http://blog.easydns.org/category/status/)

Whois Lookup (https://www.easyWhois.com)

CCoonnttaacctt UUss (https://www.easydns.com/contact-us/)

Open Free Account (https://signup.easydns.com/free_account.php)

Privacy Policy (https://nps.easydns.com/privacy-policy/)

Our 100% Unconditional Guarantee(http://nps.easydns.com/our-guarantee/ )

The 100% DNS Availability SLA(https://nps.easydns.com/dns-sla/ )

Terms of Service (https://www.easydns.com/terms_of_service/)

Reverse DNS Signup (https://signup.easydns.com/start.php?action=reverse)

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