yep, the goal here is auto renewals. They hope you are too stupid and forget to stop the renewal.
I got caught up with this with Name.com and the promo on .pics and .photo. Registered a bunch of names and due to family emergency did not stop the auto renewal. A few days after renewal contacted them, they would not budge. Got hit with like $2k in renewal fees on names I did not want to renew.... as a result...
I will NEVER do business with Name.com or those tlds that have zero life... and why I also stop the auto renewal day one. =)