new gtlds Domain Name News That Will Spook You!

[eenmakkie]

Imagine registering a new domain, at he moment you registered the new domain, it was not a premium top level domain. So you pay a fair price for it.
You think it is yours and every year you have to pay the same renewal price.

That is what I did by godaddy.com
I bought a new TLD domain when they came on the market.

started offering it for sale.

Now when the next renewal is coming close, I went to my godaddy.com account and suddenly they wanted 499.99$ to renew the domain for a year. A huge multiple increase compare to the price I paid to register the name.
I called help desk and they told that the domain has become top level domain name as they have seen the value of it.

what?!!!!!

So you buy a domain, spent a lot of money and work on the website, make a business around it, it becomes big on the market, you start to earn millions and suddenly the registrars can ask you what ever they want to renew your domain as they have seen the value of your domain now?

And if you do not pay the extravagant renewal price they ask, it becomes there's? So then they can sell your hard work?

Is this legal?

So what google.com or facebook.com they bought there domains for 1000 years upfront to avoid that the registrar can ask them a couple of billions to renew their domains?

 

[brindle123]

rules maybe are different with each registry, (as George Kirikos post was for .horse)

Yes, I believe that each extension there is a different agreement with ICANN.

I'm an idiot. I didn't notice that all of George Kirkikos comment were on Michael Berkens blog. I was thinking that he made posts somewhere other than the blog. I was even looking for them on this forum. Sorry to Joe and everyone else for my confusion.

 

[bluebox]

The whole nGTLD "experiment" is such a (unregulated) clusterfuck.
But are we even surprised? - blind greed always trumps reason (and the little guys always gets scr**ed because they can't really do anything about it)

 

[eenmakkie]

This is as much as I understand right now.

I can renew any domain I own for up to 10yrs at the current renewal price. Once that price has gone up, I will have to pay that new price. There is no going back to renew at old price.

Example #2: XXXX.villas is $20 to renew. The renewal price went up yesterday for just XXXX.villas domain not just all .villas domains, but they could have gone up also. So the new renewal price for just the XXXX.villas is now $200. This is what the registry is now telling the registrar to charge for XXXX.villas domain. Other .villas could be higher or could be lower than XXXX.villas To register any new .villas is only $25, but renewal for XXXX.villas is now $200. I can not go into my account and renew it at the old $20 price or the $25. Since the registry is telling the registrar what to charge me, I have to now pay the $200.

I hope you could follow those examples and I explained it clear enough.

This is what I think can and is happening. If someone has proof otherwise or knows something different, then please explain.

The registry can tell the registrar what to charge you.
The registrar can charge you that amount or any amount over that amount.

The registry can say to charge you $200, but the registrar needs their share so they charge you $300.

Once the price increase has gone into effect, you have to pay that increase. You can not pay the old price.
No notice at all has to be given to the registrant.

If you can prove that this isn't or can't happen, then please do.

Yes, that is what I understand also. Donut says it is not there "normal practice of doing business" but we have no guarantee that it won't happen in the future.
So now the registrars should step up and defend there clients by informing them of an upcoming price increase and give them that opportunity to renew at the current price for 10 years.
My native language is not English, so I could not completely understand Joe Styler answer on that. Maybe you could study his answer above and let us know.

Best would be if @Joe Styler himself would explain if Godaddy would inform us (registrants) about the same, with a clear written language so also not native English can understand it.

expl. of a clear text "yes we (registrar Godaddy will inform all our clients (registrants) about an upcoming renewal price hike 6 months later for any of there specific domains they hold with the start date . (not if it is a general price hike for the whole extension GTLD) and give the registrants the opportunity to renew at current price for the next 10 years."

Ofcourse they can not let us renew at the old price, but if the registrar informs us 6 months upfront, the "old price" is still the current price and then there is no legal problem of offering it for 10 years renewal.

It all comes to informing the client (registrant) upfront or not.
If no upfront notice is received, then yes there is a legal problem offering it to the client at the "old price" as that price is not available any more.

We (included me) where all speaking about the "old price" but that is the wrong legal term to use.

If the expl. domain of @brindle123 XXXX.villas (actually a cool domain if it was only 3 xxx can be sold good) will have a price increase of current 69.99$ to 200$ starting at 1-sept-2016 (so 6 months later) and the registrar (Godaddy or others) would inform the registrant NOW or within the next 7 days that his/her domain will have a substantial price increase to 200$ starting at 1-sept-2016, but the registrant has still the option to renew that domain at CURRENT price of 69.99$ for the next 10 year if they wish to.

Then all should be ok, and we can close this threat.

It all comes to informing or let the registrant find it out them self.
But they can't, as as far I know, there is now way to check what a price renewal will do 6 months later.
Other then each registrant sent an formal letter to there registries asking if there domains have an upcoming price hike within the next 6 months. And repeating that each 4 months to give you self at least 2 months the time to renew at current prices.

For meself: I hope Godaddy as my largest registrar can give me that security with a clear written declaration or link to a text where that is written, that they will inform me 6 months in advance of any price hike related to my specific domains.

 

[brindle123]

The registry has to give Godaddy and all registrars notice of any price increase. Why that fails to get to the registrants is unclear.

I have seen renewal price increase weekly sometimes.

This is all just geared towards taking money out of your pocket and putting it into the business's pocket.

ICANN should be and is supposed to be the entity regulating this shit, but again they are getting money and input from the registries and registrars. Domain owners have very little say in the policy making process, especially when it is concerned with the agreements between ICANN and the registry/registrar.

Everyone should send a complaint to ICANN anytime you hear of someone being wronged, not just when you are wronged, because the next time it could be you.

 

[eenmakkie]

IDomain owners have very little say in the policy making process, especially when it is concerned with the agreements between ICANN and the registry/registrar.

I am not sure if the technical term domain "owners" can be used. And the fee we pay are much more as only the maintenance costs.
I guess it is more domain "lease holders" that comes closer. As long as you pay the rent, you hold the lease and can sell the lease to an other. Where the owner of the domain "the registry" after expiration of the lease can ask a new lease price to the next leaseholder.
When nobody pays the rent, the owner will get back his possession.

.com probably the terms are different there, but Verisign likes to take there part of the newGTLDs renewal prices and has increases there renewals substantially.

Now it comes: if a .com is not renewed, I don't think it will become back full possession of Verisign .
The domain will be back available for anybody to register at the normal then current registration fees.

with the newGTLDs, that is not the case as the registry can withhold a new domain that was not renewed on time , they even can sell it later on auctions and increase the renewal rates substantially. So they are the real owners of those domains.
And we only the leaseholders.

Anybody? If I have it all wrong here, please let us know

 

[SiteMachine]

If anyone is interested in the app I built that will keep track of your new gtld domains and notify you if any of them get designated as premium as soon as the registrar knows feel free to PM me, I have it working in beta.

I am considering having the ability to add domains for free just without any guaranteed personal notifications, that way if a lot of names start to go premium I can notify the community. Weekly or daily notifications will be a paid service.

 

[wwwweb]

Here is an example of a domain going the other way, when Car.Loans was being released it had a $1,000 annual premium renewal, it is a killer term. Today is has a renewal of $89, there are thousands of worse terms that have $100-$250 renewal, how did this one get scaled back?

 

[Joe Styler]

OK so here is what happened. There was a technical error and it is being addressed. For it to have happened you needed to push a domain or receive a pushed name from one account to another in a group of names, if that group was mixed premium/non premium renewal something broke and caused the gaining account to think the renewals for all domains in that group were premium.
This is fixed in most tlds, but there are a few being cleaned up still, likely the reason the .red etc names are showing up higher still but will be fixed shortly.
As I stated above we do audit things routinely and this was apparently already caught in an audit and anyone who paid more than they should have are already being refunded proactively by us for the difference. This was happening already without my intervention.
We had some meetings as a result of this thread which should help increase the customer service level on any pricing issues with the gtlds so that calling in and asking about it will get you the right answer the first time, that something is broken, not that there was some kind of increase by the registry.
So again I apologize for the error. I am glad you brought it to our attention. We work very hard to get things right the first time but if there are errors we do what we can to find out what happened, try and prevent them in the future, and make things right.

 

[SiteMachine]

Thanks @Joe Styler for clarifying. It is good to hear that goDaddy makes an effort to refund its mistakes (although it would be better for everyone and the collective reputations of the new gtlds if these overcharges never happened in the first place).

I have to be honest though I will still go out of my way to avoid goDaddy solely because they supported SOPA. Because of this I will never trust them, it might be worth bringing this up as well at the meetings so the PR team is aware of exactly how much damage this decision did to your brand (I know dozens of other developers who are also boycotting goDaddy permanently).

When goDaddy took the side of SOPA namecheap decided stand up for privacy rights online and come out against SOPA, because of this they have gotten all my domain registrations since and every time someone has asked me where to get a domain name (at least a weekly occurrence) I suggest namecheap, often citing SOPA as the main reason (although price certainly plays a role).

 

[Joe Styler]

While it is true that GoDaddy took the side of SOPA briefly, it was not all of us and the main person who decided that is no longer with the company and has not been with us for many years. We did change course from internal and external feedback. We have since had three CEO's and none of them have supported anything like that. The company has had some big changes and the leadership has been changed ( I think completely) since that time. The new leadership is more in line with what the company and the customers think as a whole and has made changes that reflect that in our brand, attitude, and advertising. I appreciate the feedback but know that there are not any SOPA supporters currently in leadership at GoDaddy.

 

[eenmakkie]

OK so here is what happened. There was a technical error and it is being addressed. For it to have happened you needed to push a domain or receive a pushed name from one account to another in a group of names, if that group was mixed premium/non premium renewal something broke and caused the gaining account to think the renewals for all domains in that group were premium.
This is fixed in most tlds, but there are a few being cleaned up still, likely the reason the .red etc names are showing up higher still but will be fixed shortly.
As I stated above we do audit things routinely and this was apparently already caught in an audit and anyone who paid more than they should have are already being refunded proactively by us for the difference. This was happening already without my intervention.
We had some meetings as a result of this thread which should help increase the customer service level on any pricing issues with the gtlds so that calling in and asking about it will get you the right answer the first time, that something is broken, not that there was some kind of increase by the registry.
So again I apologize for the error. I am glad you brought it to our attention. We work very hard to get things right the first time but if there are errors we do what we can to find out what happened, try and prevent them in the future, and make things right.

thanks Joe, past is past and future is more what interest me.
I really will appreciate if you can answer this:
will registrar Godaddy inform me as (registrants) about an upcoming renewal price hike coming within 6 months for any of my domains I hold by Godaddy? A substantial hike (+50%) or so. Not every small increase.
yes or no?

 

[Joe Styler]

I told you already as much as I can. We have notified people in the past of price increases and I do not see why that would change. No one knows the future so I can only comment on the past and what we will likely do. I know the account representatives for premier services are on top of things and proactively reach out to the customers in advance on things that impact them financially. Also the blogs and forums are on top of changes like this and typically break the news very quickly. Look at this thread for example

 

[eenmakkie]

I told you already as much as I can. We have notified people in the past of price increases and I do not see why that would change. No one knows the future so I can only comment on the past and what we will likely do. I know the account representatives for premier services are on top of things and proactively reach out to the customers in advance on things that impact them financially. Also the blogs and forums are on top of changes like this and typically break the news very quickly. Look at this thread for example

thanks Joe,

so as I understand the account representatives try what they can. But Godaddy as registrar has up till now, no automatic system set up where after they get an automatic notification from the registry about a renewal price hike for a PARTICULAR DOMAIN of one client (not the entire GTLD) that that information is automatic passed over to that registrant (client)?
with more than 50 million domains overseen by Godaddy, only automation will give that security and not human best intentions to help clients proactively .

forums are for general extension information and not for individual domains. As mentioned I have not created this thread for personal help, but for information to help me take good decisions for the future regarding newGTLDs

I know a lot more info then when I started this thread, thanks to all. Again thank you.
But I still have not been given the security and insurance (black on white) .

No registry at all has come forward here confirming they "CAN NOT" or " WILL NEVER" increase renewal rates on individual domain level. (not the entire GTLD ) when still owned/leased by a registrant.

No registrar has come forward giving the security to the registrants that if they receive a price hike notification from the registry of A domain, they have a system setup that always will inform the registrants 6 months in advance about it. (what registrants then do with that info is up to them)

maybe these questions have no good answer yet, for that the silence.

@Joe Styler , what Godaddy premier services you need to have, so support proactively informs registrants on things that will impact them financially in the near future.


@SiteMachine what has namecheap proactively set up for this?


"The past is history, the future stays a mystery"

 

[SBS66]

I don't know the finer points of the authority of ICANN, registrars etc. but this type of issue seems ripe for a class action lawsuit...against ICANN (which no matter what is not an authority onto the entire world), the registries/registrars, etc. The only time I see any love for lawyers is when things of this nature are brought to light, usually as class actions since in those lawsuits the ones who really make the money are the lawyers...but the parties sued do make changes and pay fines.

 

[Joe Styler]

I do not think anyone can say what will happen in the future. That is my point. I can only say what we have done and what has guided the company - a commitment to the best customer service possible. This has included notifying people of price increases in the past. Premier services is an enhancement to the service we already offer not a replacement for notifications we send everyone, as are forums and blogs.
My point in bringing these things to your attention is to make a strong case that someone concerned with the potential of future price increases would have a very hard time not being notified in some way shape or form of the increase ahead of time. There are various independent resources that will break this news as it impacts their customers or target audiences which includes registrars, registries, forums, bloggers, major news outlets and of course government filings as many of the companies behind the tlds are public, etc. If a tld is going to raise it's price and has to give a 6 month notice and also has to report to their investors quarterly, you can bet that they will reveal that information publicly to their investors among other outlets.

Simply put I am not sure how someone watching the domain market could not know about a price increase in advance.

 

[SiteMachine]

@SiteMachine what has namecheap proactively set up for this?

Nothing as far as I know, they allow you to check it yourself which in my opinion is the only person who's responsibility it should be to keep up with it. As long as they don't hide an increase or a change in premium status I'm certainly not going to be mad at them.

Again though someone is talking lawyers and class action lawsuits. I have to wonder what law they think is being broken here. I also wonder why they think this would be the fault of ICANN and not the individual registry that made the change. Granted, they did mention they don't know the finer points which I would argue is fairly obvious.

This whole thread has a very anti personal responsibility vibe with some anti free market stuff mixed in, the republicans would be disappointed LOL

I think somewhere along the line the whole change status to premium got conflated with steep price increases for an extension and they are being referred to as the same thing now which isn't true and can be confusing.

Still, I think it is everyone's own responsibility to keep track of your domains, the tools are there. I mean you asked Joe what premier service you needed to have this happen automatically which is the crux of it right there, you subconsciously realize this is above and beyond what you would expect from the registrar. I doubt godaddy has this system in place to notify people because I don't think any registrars do. That said, I whipped up the function into a web interface in about an hour so it isn't like its rocket science. To that point, I offered people use of it and got no PMs so I'm over and out on this one. I think we need to agree to disagree on who's responsibility it is to monitor the names in your portfolio.

 

[eenmakkie]

Nothing as far as I know, they allow you to check it yourself which in my opinion is the only person who's responsibility it should be to keep up with it. As long as they don't hide an increase or a change in premium status I'm certainly not going to be mad at them.

Again though someone is talking lawyers and class action lawsuits. I have to wonder what law they think is being broken here. I also wonder why they think this would be the fault of ICANN and not the individual registry that made the change. Granted, they did mention they don't know the finer points which I would argue is fairly obvious.

This whole thread has a very anti personal responsibility vibe with some anti free market stuff mixed in, the republicans would be disappointed LOL

I think somewhere along the line the whole change status to premium got conflated with steep price increases for an extension and they are being referred to as the same thing now which isn't true and can be confusing.

Still, I think it is everyone's own responsibility to keep track of your domains, the tools are there. I mean you asked Joe what premier service you needed to have this happen automatically which is the crux of it right there, you subconsciously realize this is above and beyond what you would expect from the registrar. I doubt godaddy has this system in place to notify people because I don't think any registrars do. That said, I whipped up the function into a web interface in about an hour so it isn't like its rocket science. To that point, I offered people use of it and got no PMs so I'm over and out on this one. I think we need to agree to disagree on who's responsibility it is to monitor the names in your portfolio.

• if domain xxxx.villas has today 06-april 2016 a renewal price of 69.99$
  • today and in the next 5 months and 29 days you can renew THAT domain at 69,99$ for the next 10 years if you wish.

• if the registry informs the registrar today that THAT domain will have a renewal price of 499$ STARTING ONLY at 07-Oct-2016
• then there is not any tool or way to look up yourself that will let you know what the renewal price will be after 07-Oct-2016 as today you can only see the price of today for the next 10 years.

@Joe Styler @SiteMachine @wwwweb @brindle123 please if I am missing something here above and the system works different, let me know and help me here out as I really do not see any way to find it out your self, even if you are checking each day the renewal prices, it will only show you the price of today and not starting 6 months in the future. As far as I now understand the system, only the registrar has control over passing the info of upcoming price hike or not to the registrant.

 

[Asfas1000]

Simply put I am not sure how someone watching the domain market could not know about a price increase in advance.

Why do you assume your customers are watching the domain market...

 

[eenmakkie]

I do not think anyone can say what will happen in the future. That is my point. I can only say what we have done and what has guided the company - a commitment to the best customer service possible. This has included notifying people of price increases in the past. Premier services is an enhancement to the service we already offer not a replacement for notifications we send everyone, as are forums and blogs.
My point in bringing these things to your attention is to make a strong case that someone concerned with the potential of future price increases would have a very hard time not being notified in some way shape or form of the increase ahead of time. There are various independent resources that will break this news as it impacts their customers or target audiences which includes registrars, registries, forums, bloggers, major news outlets and of course government filings as many of the companies behind the tlds are public, etc. If a tld is going to raise it's price and has to give a 6 month notice and also has to report to their investors quarterly, you can bet that they will reveal that information publicly to their investors among other outlets.

Simply put I am not sure how someone watching the domain market could not know about a price increase in advance.

nobody knows the future, for that exist insurances, contracts and subscriptions. That if and when it will happen: you are covered due to a contract you pay for.
I have no problem paying for a security, but it needs to be black on white as an insurance contract.

 

[eenmakkie]

Why do you assume your customers are watching the domain market...

even if you are watching each day, I can't think of a system to know what is hanging above your head 6 months in the future that some know already but have not passed the info to you.