Most domain investors don’t know what they are agreeing to when they create an account with a domain registrar. They just click a box agreeing to the terms of service. With some registrars you are agreeing just by logging in. Now to be fair you don’t have a choice, you can’t register a domain name and not agree to the TOS.
The fact of the matter is that you should at least read the terms and conditions so when an occasional problem comes up you will understand why.
One area to pay attention to is the first 30 days of a domain registration. Lately I have been running into people getting names taken back and not understanding why.
This is happening more often due to the new gtlds, but first let me take you back to 2007 and one episode in .tv that shows how these things can happen.
Back in 2007 Online.tv dropped hundreds of valuable premium .tv names. The names dropped and were priced at $10, the deal that Online.tv had with Verisign for a number of years.
Now Verisign was known for these “glitches” and when it was a one off domain you did not have to worry about them taking it back 99 out of 100 times.
This was a bulk dump and there were members at Namepros that got 1 and 2 letter .tv domains for $10. So you had people register domains, get an email confirmation and have control over the domains to do things like change nameservers.
These domains were registered at Enom, the next day the domains were taken back.
“Please be advised, that due to a pricing error, we inadvertently listed several .TV premium domain names at $10.00 each. These .tv premium domain names were supposed to be priced at $10,000.00 per domain name. As a result, any .TV premium domains you purchased at the $10.00 rate will be removed from your account and full credit will be issued today. These .tv premium domains will be re-priced and re-added to the Auction website today.”
One member got a large chunk of the domains, I had pointed out that the registration agreement allowed for them to take back the domains. The debate went on, and then John Berryhill came in and backed up what I had said, and then continued to layout other points that the thread starter disagreed with.
John was thorough in going over every potential scenario where one could try to attack Enom from a legal standpoint. The thread got quite heated, it’s worth a read.
So let’s look at Enom’s TOS,
- We and your Primary Service Provider may reject your domain name registration application or elect to discontinue providing Services to you for any reason within thirty (30) days of a Service initiation or a Service renewal. Outside of this period, we and your Primary Service Provider may terminate or suspend the Services at any time for cause, which, without limitation, includes (i) registration of prohibited domain name(s), (ii) abuse of the Services, (iii) payment irregularities, (iv) allegations of illegal conduct or infringement of any third party intellectual property right or other right, (v) failure to keep your Account or WHOIS information accurate and up to date, (vi) failure to respond to inquiries from us for over fifteen (15) calendar days, or (vii) if your use of the Services involves us in a violation or alleged violation of any third party’s rights or acceptable use policies, including but not limited to the transmission of unsolicited email or the violation or alleged violation of any intellectual property right or other right. No fee refund will be made when there is a suspension or termination of Services for cause.
- At any time and for any reason, we may terminate the Services thirty (30) days after we send notice of termination via mail or email, at our option, to the WHOIS contact information provided in association with your domain name registration. Following notice of termination other than for cause, you must transfer your domain name within such thirty (30) day notice period or risk that we may delete your domain name, transfer the registration services associated with your domain name to ourselves or a third party, or suspend or modify Services related to your domain name. If we terminate Services for a reason other than cause, we will provide a pro-rata refund of your fees.
- If we terminate or suspend the Services provided to you under this Agreement, we may then, at our option, make either ourselves or a third party the beneficiary of Services which are substantially similar to those which were previously provided to you. If we have grounds to terminate or suspend Services with respect to one domain name or in relation to other Services provided through your Account, we may terminate or suspend all Services provided through your Account.
- Your registration of a domain name is subject to suspension, cancellation or transfer by any ICANN procedure now in affect or which may come into effect at a later date, by any registrar or registry administrator procedures approved by an ICANN-adopted policy or any policy adopted by any ccTLD registry or governing body, to correct mistakes by us, another registrar or the registry administrator in administering the domain name or for the resolution of disputes concerning the domain name or as a result of any government decree, rule, law or regulation.
I placed “for any reason” in bold, this is important to understand, that it does not matter the name or the reason given, it’s there to protect against mistakes. The fourth point of the Enom agreement even includes the language “to correct mistakes by us.”
The other thing to take note of is the first 30 days of a renewal come under the same terms.
Now getting back to new gtlds, it seems this is where most of the recent pullbacks are taking place. A registry may misprice a bunch of domain names with non premium pricing and then someone catches it and tells the registrar to refund the registrant.
I have seen some names where a registry does not pullback, maybe they feel it’s better to create a sense of goodwill. Because it’s creating a sense of hostility by some who got a good but not great name taken from them. It does not play well in the domain investor community when you take back names that were not that special in the first place. In the case of the .tv names everyone knew those names were premium and would never sell for $10. In a world of 800 extensions, the word premium has already been diluted, it might be better to let those interested in your names to run with them unless it was an outlier type name that’s truly worthy of the premium moniker.
The reality is Raymond the majority of ToS are written so that average joes reading will NOT understand everything. Companies bank on this.
The only way you can understand what a registry, registrar, and registrant’s rights are is if John Berryhill or another domain attorney sat down with you. Then explained EVERY single clause in the agreement. This is obviously something nobody would do.
Even then the clauses are somewhat open to legal interpretation, past rulings, and clever lawyers. What are considered “mistakes by us” for example.
Verisign and .TV attempted to do premium pricing but it clearly didn’t work. They don’t do it anymore. Right?
Premium pricing is confusing back then and it is confusing now. Registries will stop doing this since it isn’t helping the case for new Gs. Especially when 87 percent of people don’t trust new domain extensions.
https://whodoyou.trust/news–events/news/2015/april/consumers-express-security-concerns-with-new-internet/
Registry take backs is bad for the entire new gTLD ecosystem. It makes me wary to build on any new domain extension because I don’t know what a registry/registrar thinks is “premium”. As certain keywords and terms in my mind are valuable but are worthless to someone else. That comes down to life experience, personal interests, area of business. etc.
Overall I’m not recommending any of these new extensions. I wrote to someone that bought one for a business and convinced here to use a COM/ORG for her new business.
The best part of new gTLD program was the inclusion of IDN.IDN domains.
I appreciate you writing and sharing your insight Raymond.
Dot tv still does one time premiums yes, premium pricing is what excited everyone about .tv from the start, Jason Chapnik and everyone else saw premium pricing as the way.
Tuvalu liked it because they needed to maximize revenue from their most valuable asset.
New gtld takebacks are a problem because they make an enemy out of registrants like yourself. Someone wanting a name and would be a positive voice now feels harmed and will boycott them. Like I said I would let a one off go, if someone mispriced every One letter .media for $10 then I expect Donuts to use the TOS to takeback. But one name by a registrant at a time in different strings does more harm than good.
Again IMO
Exactly. Why punish people that
1. Know about new domain extensions
2. Buy them
3. Will build sites on them
Am I missing something here?
The registry makes money on renewals regardless. So why do they care?
I’ve never bought nor do I plan to buy a .TV domain.
During a year long dispute with 1n1saying I owed 90.00 for domain names I canceled, I was sent to collections as well as being locked out of my account. I paid the 90.00 to keep my credit ok.They realized they were in error and sent an email stating same,apologized and refunded my money. When I transferred my account I was missing one four LTLD as well as eight excellent Colorado marijuana domain names!??? After some research I found they had been sold and I was out $15000.00? If any attorneys read this PLEASE HELP ME! TOPTOBOTTOM1@HOTMAIL.COM
I can say without doubt that in an EU court these TOS would get demolished and the registrar could face several fines for imposing clauses unilaterally (abusive clauses may I add) and forcing the user to commit to things formulated with the lion’s share clause.
Yeah I think you are way off base. Plus these terms are there for every European registrar. As Berryhill pointed out in the Namepros thread, contracts provide protection against mistakes. So incorrect.
In at least some EU jurisdictions the seller is obliged to the sale in case of misprints in (online) shops.
quote:
As with in-store purchases, once a customer has received their order a retailer generally has no right to claw back any money.
Problem we don’t read these TOS. This is design to protect companies when they make mistake so they can take it back, not for average joe’s.
Hard to accept but this is life in business. Not a smooth process.
I think what is often overlooked in these cases is that it’s not the registrar (eNom) cancelling the domains but the registry (Verisign).
In the registry – registrar agreement there’s going to be something to cover correcting material errors and equally in the client – registrar agreement that will be covered too so that’s all that’s happened with these .tv domains. I’ve had the same thing happen when trading penny shares and if the exchange prints a bad price and you trade on it, you’ll have the trade cancelled – that wasn’t the right price. Tough.
With the new gTLDs, some extensions only published their premium lists the day before they launched so it’s forgivable if a registrar didn’t have that configured in their system and orders for premiums are placed at the standard price. I’ve had this explained to me a couple of times and had the choice to pay the premium fee or cancel the order.
When I read comments on domaining sites from people this has happened to claiming to have new gTLD domains “stolen” off them by registrars it makes me laugh – they need to put their dummies back in and take a nap! That’s just how it works now. The world has changed, move on or move over.