Domain reclassified as premium at Name.com & priced at 10x original renewal!

[bismisoft]

Normally i set every domain to auto renewal and forget it. Randomly and once in a while will audit the account to see if there is any anomalies in renewal prices.

During this process in @name.com Name.com account found one of the domain marked as premium and renewal price has been set to more 10x the original renewal price. Original transfer/renewal prices is $69.99 and new renewal price is insane $736.25, no communication or anything, nada.

This domain is a .bond TLD and there is a similar discussion about another TLD here where is registrant just filed a ICANN complaint against the registrar/registry.

Filed a ticket and getting the same usual registry changed and we can't do anything about it.

I've asked to escalate and i'll update the thread.

Meanwhile If you're on auto renew, advise everyone to thoroughly go through your account.

This is getting ridiculous that registrars / registries can change status as premium and charge whatever they want without your consent while continuously OWNing and RENEWing the domain.

 

[Porkbun]

It's a shame more and more of these cases keep surfacing. We've dealt with a few just this year, in all of those we were able to get the registry to properly honor the original non-premium price and refund any previous renewals that were at the wrong price.

To pass some advice, if your registrar is not going to bat for you, I would recommend contacting the registry directly as they're the ones that created the issue to begin with. For .bond, that would be ShortDot.

I'll be honest, I think most of these issues are more technical mishaps than purposefully malicious. Registries have been reevaluating their tiers and moving domains from one to the other, in all cases I've seen it's been explicit that currently active domains would remain at legacy tiers until deleted, but errors can still happen. Also there's been a lot of shifts in backend providers lately, and in the past, we've seen that result in premium or reserved lists getting mishandled. Specifically, .help moved from CentralNic to Tucows backend a few weeks ago and maybe is part of the issue here.

Malicious or not, an ICANN complaint is probably still a good follow up as this is in breach of 2.10(c), and registries should be held accountable for inaction on errors like this.

 

[jberryhill]

What you think @jberryhill I m right or wrong?

No idea. I had not heard of this "reclassification during registration" tactic before. I'd have to spend time digging into it, and my time happens to be the only thing I sell for a living.

Just off the top of my head, it sounds like a sneaky end-run that someone dreamed up. It's been a while since I had a reason to curl up for an afternoon with the registry agreements, but as I recall, the standard registry agreement wasn't really written with the sorts of pricing models that registries use. For a general price increase across the board, there is a six month notice period, or something to that effect. But, sure, if a registry reclassifies all of its registered names into a new "premium" tier, that sounds like the kind of thing where someone has already spent more time reading the RA than I'm going to do this weekend, that's for sure.

I haven't checked whether .bond changed hands, but as I recall, the folks running it were pretty slimy to begin with. They ran premium promotions on both 007.bond and James.bond when one of the movies was released and acted like "7 and 'james' are just a number and a name" as if anyone couldn't see through their stupid excuse. Like most new TLD registries, revenues fell way short of expectations and so they are just trying to squeeze all the juice out of it they can.

Most of the money to be had in new TLDs has been in (a) losing the private contention auctions and getting paid not to run a registry or (b) getting into various domain name registration "blocking" programs and getting paid not to register names. I have nothing against someone with a business idea trying to make a go of it, but the various shenanigans involved in new TLDs are shameful. That said, I'm happy to see the royal court of "tld consultants" get their fingers into the pockets of dumb brand owners in the next round.

 

[ryan87]

This domain is a .bond TLD and there is a similar discussion about another TLD here where is registrant just filed a ICANN complaint against the registrar/registry.

That's me

To clarify, I did NOT file a complaint against any registrars. In fact, both Namecheap and Porkbun made a lot of effort to help me. Both provided me with information and statements that significantly improved the quality of my complaint against the registry.

Filed a ticket and getting the same usual registry changed and we can't do anything about it.

If the domain was reclassified by the registry, that's true. The registrars can't do anything without the registry agreeing.

This is getting ridiculous that registrars / registries can change status as premium and charge whatever they want without your consent while continuously OWNing and RENEWing the domain.

The registrars can't change the classification. Only the registries can. I'm 99% sure the registries hate it as much as us registrants because they operate on thin margins and a support incident to deal with pricing reclassification is going to dwarf any profit they're making on a non-premium domain.

I suspect, without any proof, a lot of the pricing shenanigans are at the behest of the registries even though they cause a lot of consumer confusion, but the support costs resulting from that confusion are externalized onto the registrars, so the registries don't care. I've been paying attention to pricing issues for almost 5 years and almost every time someone complains it's because they misunderstood what they originally bought or they were a victim of foreign currency (exchange rate) fluctuations.

Of note, I've noticed some registrars started adding warnings about billing currencies and foreign exchange rates since the registrant of forum.dev posted about a huge pricing change on Hacker News in 2022. I know both Namecheap and Porkbun show warnings when I checkout.

In terms of support costs for a pricing reclassification like mine, I went back and forth with Namecheap about a half a dozen times and some of the things I asked them to investigate were things like the historical classification of my domain. Those aren't 5 minute support incidents and probably required internal escalation. With Porkbun it was fewer interactions, but one of them also required internal escalation.

If the registrars end up interacting with ICANN as a result of my complaint, that's even more support costs. All in all, I wouldn't be surprised if the total support costs, to the registrars, end up being hundreds of dollars. And that's for a domain where they might be making $2 or $3 per year in markup (maybe less).

In my case, the registrars didn't do anything wrong and are eating a ton of support costs. In my opinion, most of the registrars are acting in good faith and I think their actions, like showing those foreign currency warnings, show that.

Meanwhile If you're on auto renew, advise everyone to thoroughly go through your account.

The problem I've run into with that is that pricing classifications are too opaque. Most registrants don't have access to anything that clearly shows the classification of a domain. I found the info needed to get API access at Namecheap, put $50 in my Namecheap account to meet the requirements, spent an entire afternoon to set up my logs, spent time checking the logs regularly, and spent 4-8 hours to interact with registrar support, read ICANN agreements, and prepare + file my complaint.

I know how everything works. I knew what to look for and how to keep a "paper trail" for everything relevant. I've probably spent 10-15 hours, including logging and monitoring, to get to the point of having a decent complaint filed. Almost no one is going to put in that kind of effort because it doesn't (or didn't) make sense to make the kind of effort I did to mitigate a risk that isn't (or wasn't) supposed to exist.

I don't even think the registrars have good historical logs of the pricing classifications. Both Namecheap and Porkbun were able to definitively tell me the classification of my domain when I registered / renewed, but Namecheap wasn't super solid on exactly when my domain was reclassified. The timeframe they gave me was a range and didn't match what my logs from their API said. They probably don't see the need to log that info and I didn't expect them to have it. I suspect they estimated, but I don't know for sure and didn't want to burden support with investigating something that doesn't make a difference; it doesn't matter exactly when my domain was reclassified, only that is was reclassified while registered.

I've asked to escalate and i'll update the thread.

Make sure you have a solid understanding of the role played by the registrars vs the registries. The best you can expect from the registrar is to have them confirm the pricing classification changed during the registration period and, even though they're not obligated to as far as I know, to reach out to the registry on your behalf to ask for the pricing classification to be reverted.

If you have, or get, any documentation or info that definitively proves your domain was reclassified during the registration period, please post about it here. I think it's useful for everyone to understand how to get that info and what it should look like.

 

[bismisoft]

Did you ever get a response from the registry? Or did you decide to go directly to ICANN with the inquiry?

As mentioned in previous post, tried several times though different ways to contact ShortDotDomains, no response or acknowledgment at all (their twitter is active but still no response from there either).

Since the renewal was nearing (2nd april), I've escalated and shared my concern with name.com (including info that registry non-responsive) through ticket and finally they agreed to reach out to registry. The registry responded to them (as expected) and agreed to revise the price to original renewal price and finally renewed the domain yesterday.

Wish they would have done this in the first place (a month ago) this whole unnecessary nightmare could have been avoided. Well, we all learn it the hard way otherwise it's not learning

 

[Bob Hawkes]

To make it even worse, now their online contact form is erroring out and couldn't even submit again via contact form.

Yes, the contact form was not working a couple of years ago as well. I would think that would be a compliance issue? Anyway, if you are persistent enough with their X account someone will respond eventually, or that was true in my experience. But the responses did not deal with the issue.

Since the renewal was nearing (2nd april), I've escalated and shared my concern with name.com (including info that registry non-responsive) through ticket and finally they agreed to reach out to registry. The registry responded to them (as expected) and agreed to revise the price to original renewal price and finally renewed the domain yesterday.

I am glad that your persistence paid off and it was resolved for you.

But how many others, including those with developed sites, were hit and just paid up the much higher premium charge.

-Bob

 

[ryan87]

While this is a registry, not a registrar, created problem, if registrars heard from enough disgruntled registrants maybe there would be sufficient pressure that something would happen. At least one major registrar does not handle ShortDot extensions, I believe.

As I've dug into it, I'm stunned by the lack of registrant protections when it comes to premium classified domains. That's left me with the opinion that registrars should refuse to sell them until better rules are put in place that protect registrants (aka the registrars' customers). Cloudflare already does that as far as I understand.

I'm not sure about registrars refusing to sell an entire extension though. As an aggregate, the registrars wield most of the power in the industry because they're the only one that has a relationship with registrants. If they stop handling entire TLDs, some of the registry operators may take more notice of that weakness and start buying + consolidating registrars to maintain the status quo.

Since there's not a ban on being both a registrar and a registry operator, which there should be in my opinion, there's always a risk of seeing consolidation in the industry that makes it worse for registrants. The only way to truly protect registrants is via contractual guarantees, which is mainly the registry agreement, and that doesn't seem to be a priority for ICANN.

In the last 10 years, have there been any changes to the registry agreement that benefited registrants?

I am at a loss why ICANN permit a registry to seemingly flout the protections that were carefully built within the new gTLD registry agreement that names not be reclassified as premium while still being continuously registered.

Were there protections added to the agreement for new gTLDs? I didn't see anything in the agreement that deals with premium pricing classifications. The word "premium" doesn't even appear.

ShortDot subsequently also stopped honouring a commitment that .icu premium names would only be premium fee in first year. I don't think that is contrary to any ICANN agreement, but it seems wrong to publicize that the premium fee will only be for one year, and that was true for a few years, then apply huge increases for those domain names.

That's a very good point and most people don't undertand there are, in my opinion, no registrant protections to prevent it. That's why I was careful when talking about those kinds of registrations to say "I don't have a problem with it if the domain becomes non-premium for the duration of the registration period", but it's a subtly that most people won't notice.

Thank you for pointing out an instance of it actually occuring. It's nice to have an example instead of speculation / interpretation.

Hopefully ICANN can provide greater guidance and oversight for these renewal premium domain reclassifications.

That would be nice. ICANN is the only one in a position to foster stability and predictibility for domain registrants. There's a massive imbalance of power between a registry and a registrant and, if ICANN doesn't protect the interests of registrants, I think (some of) the registries will ruin the long term health of the system by chasing short term profits.

ICANN's position seems pretty clear though. There's a good post on DNW [1] from a couple days ago that shows it. I agree with most of the author commentary on that.

@bismisoft You should try to keep as much documentation as you can that shows the way your domain was reclassified, the (attempted) price increase, and the reversal. It demonstrates that registries are willing to and have engaged in targetted price increases for domain names that are potentially valuable. It doesn't matter who owns the domain at that point, because targetting high value keywords is an effective way of targetting registrants that are likely to have built / developed enough with their domains to make switching TLDs hard (or impossible).

That DNW article also shows why it's so imporant for registrars to keep track of this issue. ICANN is saying it doesn't make business sense for registries to engage in this kind of price discrimination while it's literally happening to some registrants.

1. domainnamewire.com/2024/03/28/icann-publishes-economic-analysis-about-price-controls-in-org-and-info/

 

[bismisoft]

That's me

To clarify, I did NOT file a complaint against any registrars. In fact, both Namecheap and Porkbun made a lot of effort to help me. Both provided me with information and statements that significantly improved the quality of my complaint against the registry.



If the domain was reclassified by the registry, that's true. The registrars can't do anything without the registry agreeing.



The registrars can't change the classification. Only the registries can. I'm 99% sure the registries hate it as much as us registrants because they operate on thin margins and a support incident to deal with pricing reclassification is going to dwarf any profit they're making on a non-premium domain.

I suspect, without any proof, a lot of the pricing shenanigans are at the behest of the registries even though they cause a lot of consumer confusion, but the support costs resulting from that confusion are externalized onto the registrars, so the registries don't care. I've been paying attention to pricing issues for almost 5 years and almost every time someone complains it's because they misunderstood what they originally bought or they were a victim of foreign currency (exchange rate) fluctuations.

Of note, I've noticed some registrars started adding warnings about billing currencies and foreign exchange rates since the registrant of forum.dev posted about a huge pricing change on Hacker News in 2022. I know both Namecheap and Porkbun show warnings when I checkout.

In terms of support costs for a pricing reclassification like mine, I went back and forth with Namecheap about a half a dozen times and some of the things I asked them to investigate were things like the historical classification of my domain. Those aren't 5 minute support incidents and probably required internal escalation. With Porkbun it was fewer interactions, but one of them also required internal escalation.

If the registrars end up interacting with ICANN as a result of my complaint, that's even more support costs. All in all, I wouldn't be surprised if the total support costs, to the registrars, end up being hundreds of dollars. And that's for a domain where they might be making $2 or $3 per year in markup (maybe less).

In my case, the registrars didn't do anything wrong and are eating a ton of support costs. In my opinion, most of the registrars are acting in good faith and I think their actions, like showing those foreign currency warnings, show that.



The problem I've run into with that is that pricing classifications are too opaque. Most registrants don't have access to anything that clearly shows the classification of a domain. I found the info needed to get API access at Namecheap, put $50 in my Namecheap account to meet the requirements, spent an entire afternoon to set up my logs, spent time checking the logs regularly, and spent 4-8 hours to interact with registrar support, read ICANN agreements, and prepare + file my complaint.

I know how everything works. I knew what to look for and how to keep a "paper trail" for everything relevant. I've probably spent 10-15 hours, including logging and monitoring, to get to the point of having a decent complaint filed. Almost no one is going to put in that kind of effort because it doesn't (or didn't) make sense to make the kind of effort I did to mitigate a risk that isn't (or wasn't) supposed to exist.

I don't even think the registrars have good historical logs of the pricing classifications. Both Namecheap and Porkbun were able to definitively tell me the classification of my domain when I registered / renewed, but Namecheap wasn't super solid on exactly when my domain was reclassified. The timeframe they gave me was a range and didn't match what my logs from their API said. They probably don't see the need to log that info and I didn't expect them to have it. I suspect they estimated, but I don't know for sure and didn't want to burden support with investigating something that doesn't make a difference; it doesn't matter exactly when my domain was reclassified, only that is was reclassified while registered.



Make sure you have a solid understanding of the role played by the registrars vs the registries. The best you can expect from the registrar is to have them confirm the pricing classification changed during the registration period and, even though they're not obligated to as far as I know, to reach out to the registry on your behalf to ask for the pricing classification to be reverted.

If you have, or get, any documentation or info that definitively proves your domain was reclassified during the registration period, please post about it here. I think it's useful for everyone to understand how to get that info and what it should look like.

Thanks @ryan87 for the details

1. in my case i don't see much help or interest from name.com, they're more interested in closing the ticket. that's why asked them to escalate to see if anybody higher understands the situation.

2. understood it's the registries made the change however we don't buy from registries and don't have any interaction with them. leaving margin aside, it's the responsibility of the registrars to act in the best interest of their customers when it is rightfully so, in this case they should work with registry to make them understand and resolve this.

3. in my case it is not via api, straight billing and the payment history has everything. i even shared them the receipt from previous registry (Epik) before it was transferred a while ago.

 

[bismisoft]

Leaving everything aside, the bigger issue here is classifying a domain as PREMIUM and charging 10x or whatever every registry chooses while the domain is continuously renewed and owned by the same registrant.

If this becomes a reality, it is dangerous and the end of domain investment and the industry in general. Any domain or TLD in your account could become a target since new trends emerge everyday and any domain in your account could become hot keyword or term and will be marked as premium IMHO.

 

[ryan87]

If you purchase your name through a bundled service, the service, such as a webhosting company, may be the actual registrant.

That's common in the small business space. Many small businesses deal with small website design and hosting companies and their website designer ends up being the registrant of their domain. I've seen it a lot, but don't recall it ever being intentionally malicious. From what I've seen it's always a case of everyone involved not understanding the risks of doing things that way.

After all, if privacy is on, how would you know the difference?

I noticed that was a potential issue a couple of years ago when I was transferring a .ca between registrars. The whois info didn't update properly and ended up public. However, I wasn't listed as the registrant. The original (losing) registrar was.

CIRA (the .ca registry) has a good solution for it. When the registrant or admin contact changes on your domain, they send you an email telling you the new info. It's helped me catch issues.

For example, I recently transferred a couple .ca domains to Porkbun and ended up with full whois privacy instead of redacted whois privacy. With the former, CIRA is given a registrant name of "Whois Privacy". With the latter, CIRA is given my name as the registrant, but redacts it from publicly accessible whois records. In my opinion, you always want the latter, so I switched to redacted privacy. Without those emails I probably wouldn't have noticed.

However, you need to know to expect those emails and emails confirming the initial registration. If you're never listed as the registrant, you don't get those emails and probably don't know you need to be watching for them.

But, sure, if a registry reclassifies all of its registered names into a new "premium" tier, that sounds like the kind of thing where someone has already spent more time reading the RA than I'm going to do this weekend, that's for sure.

They might be able to classify all domains into a new premium tier, but they still need to keep the pricing uniform unless registrants have explictly agreed to discriminatory pricing, so there's no benefit over simply increasing the price of non-premium domains.

From the RA (emphasis added):

For the purposes of determining Renewal Pricing, the price for each domain registration renewal must be identical to the price of all other domain name registration renewals in place at the time of such renewal, and such price must take into account universal application of any refunds, rebates, discounts, product tying or other programs in place at the time of renewal. The foregoing requirements of this Section 2.10(c) shall not apply for (i) purposes of determining Renewal Pricing if the registrar has provided Registry Operator with documentation that demonstrates that the applicable registrant expressly agreed in its registration agreement with registrar to higher Renewal Pricing at the time of the initial registration of the domain name following clear and conspicuous disclosure of such Renewal Pricing to such registrant, and (ii) discounted Renewal Pricing pursuant to a Qualified Marketing Program (as defined below).

So the only way the registry is supposed to be allowed to charge a price that differs from the non-premium, uniform price is if the registrant agreed when they registered the domain. I read that part tonight because I had to renew my domain with the premium tag attached and was trying to find out if I could be inadvertantly agreeing to discriminatory pricing by renewing it.

As far as I interpret everything, there's no provision that would allow them to switch to discriminatory pricing after the initial registration. IE: You can't agree to discriminatory pricing during a renewal (not advice, just my opinion).

Additionally:

The parties acknowledge that the purpose of this Section 2.10(c) is to prohibit abusive and/or discriminatory Renewal Pricing practices imposed by Registry Operator without the written consent of the applicable registrant at the time of the initial registration of the domain and this Section 2.10(c) will be interpreted broadly to prohibit such practices.

but as I recall, the standard registry agreement wasn't really written with the sorts of pricing models that registries use

Yes, you're right, the registry agreement doesn't talk about premium pricing or pricing tiers at all, so it all comes down to the identical pricing requirement.

When I renewed my domain tonight, I wanted to document the price difference and it's nearly impossible.

I can query several registrar APIs for registration prices and transfer prices, but I can only query Namecheap's API for the renewal price on my domain and I can't query Namecheap's API to get a renewal price for any non-premium domains, even if they're in my account.

To make it even more difficult, both registration prices and transfer prices are almost always promotional prices and everything varies between registrars. There's nowhere for me to look up registry pricing or any kind of pricing that's consistent enough for me to get anything that I can use for comparison.

And, to make things even worse, Namecheap doesn't list the renewal price when you search for or register a domain, at least a .help domain. As of right now, if I register a .help domain I get a promo price of $3.80 USD and it tells me the retail registration price is $27.98 USD. However, they never mention the renewal price thoughout the entire registration process. I know that because I registered another .help domain tonight.

I spent 2 hours trying to figure out what the non-premium renewal pricing was for .help before giving up, registering, and renewing another .help domain just to get a receipt. It's the only way I could come up with to show the non-premium renewal pricing (tonight) differs from the premium renewal price I was charged (tonight).

It was useful though because my receipts match what Namecheap told me a couple weeks ago:

Meanwhile, let us share additional details with you. The current renewal price for this premium domain name is $28.78 ($28.60 is the renewal price+$0.18 ICANN fee). The attached price for your domain is lower than the usual renewal price for .HELP domains $30.16 ($29.98+$0.18 ICANN fee) due to the premium status.

Even though it's lower, that price is not identical and the non-uniform price is a result of the premium status according to Namecheap. I'm realizing that complaining to ICANN about reclassification might not have been the correct approach, but at least I have the receipts to follow up by disputing the non-uniform pricing.

Ultimately, registrants make the distinction between premium and non-premium with the assumption that a premium domain may be more expensive and that non-premium domain will always benefit from uniform pricing. At least that's my expectation and I want the premium tag removed from my domain.

I posted this in the thread I started, but I also have logs from the Namecheap API showing the renewal price was significantly increased for a period of time.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<ApiResponse Status="OK" xmlns="[link removed]">
  <Errors />
  <Warnings />
  <RequestedCommand>namecheap.domains.check</RequestedCommand>
  <CommandResponse Type="namecheap.domains.check">
    <DomainCheckResult Domain="****.help" Available="false" ErrorNo="0" Description="" IsPremiumName="true" PremiumRegistrationPrice="1180.0000" PremiumRenewalPrice="1180.0000" PremiumRestorePrice="35.4000" PremiumTransferPrice="1180.0000" IcannFee="0" EapFee="0.0" />
  </CommandResponse>
  <Server>PHX01APIEXT04</Server>
  <GMTTimeDifference>--4:00</GMTTimeDifference>
  <ExecutionTime>0.603</ExecutionTime>
</ApiResponse>

To me, that's a clear indication the registries aren't following the uniform pricing requirements in the RA. Judging by what I've experienced, I wouldn't be surprised to find out other registrants have been victims of rule-breaking price discrimination and simply don't have the proof, know-how, and time needed to pursue the issue.

Even if, or especially if, my ICANN complaint doesn't succeed in getting the premium tag removed from my domain, I think I've done a good job of demonstrating registries can, and do, reclassify domains during the registration period. It's something all registrars need to start tracking and paying attention to.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Here is the relevant Section 2.10(c) of ICANN Registry Agreement. Note I added the bolding. To me, it says if I did not give written consent at time of initial registration that the pricing of the domain name must be identical to price of all other domain name renewals, i.e. not certain names reclassified as premium.

(c) In addition, Registry Operator must have uniform pricing for renewals of domain name registrations (“Renewal Pricing”). For the purposes of determining Renewal Pricing, the price for each domain registration renewal must be identical to the price of all other domain name registration renewals in place at the time of such renewal, and such price must take into account universal application of any refunds, rebates, discounts, product tying or other programs in place at the time of renewal. The foregoing requirements of this Section 2.10(c) shall not apply for (i) purposes of determining Renewal Pricing if the registrar has provided Registry Operator with documentation that demonstrates that the applicable registrant expressly agreed in its registration agreement with registrar to higher Renewal Pricing at the time of the initial registration of the domain name following clear and conspicuous disclosure of such Renewal Pricing to such registrant, and (ii) discounted Renewal Pricing pursuant to a Qualified Marketing Program (as defined below). The parties acknowledge that the purpose of this Section 2.10(c) is to prohibit abusive and/or discriminatory Renewal Pricing practices imposed by Registry Operator without the written consent of the applicable registrant at the time of the initial registration of the domain..."

 

[ryan87]

Well, the registrar that I moved virtually all of my domains from seemed to classify all their domains as "premium." And, instead of being registrants, those purchasing domains were only deemed "subscribers."

What!? I've never heard of that. Would you be willing to share registrar names or links to tutorials that reference it? That's a nasty trap for regular users that don't understand the subtle difference.

understood it's the registries made the change however we don't buy from registries and don't have any interaction with them. leaving margin aside, it's the responsibility of the registrars to act in the best interest of their customers when it is rightfully so, in this case they should work with registry to make them understand and resolve this.

I agree. The registrars are the only one in decent a position to advocate for registrants. I just wanted to point out that registrars are getting a raw deal too.

in my case it is not via api, straight billing and the payment history has everything. i even shared them the receipt from previous registry (Epik) before it was transferred a while ago.

It may be worth reaching out to Epik support to see if they'll confirm the pricing classification for you. That's what I did with Namecheap and Porkbun. It helps because having two registrars confirm the non-premium pricing classification demonstrates that it wasn't a mistake by a registrar. If both of them say it was non-premium, that's a really good indicator the registry had it listed as non-premium since the registry is the common denominator that everyone is using to get their pricing classification info.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

This is another ShortDot registry extension. They did a similar thing in .cfd and .sbs some time ago. You can read about the situation, and my interpretation of why it was contrary to their registry agreement. Unfortunately a few people with auto renew (not me) were hit with huge bills then as well.
https://www.namepros.com/threads/tu...sbs-and-cfd-to-avoid-unexpected-bill.1290692/

ShortDot subsequently also stopped honouring a commitment that .icu premium names would only be premium fee in first year. I don't think that is contrary to any ICANN agreement, but it seems wrong to publicize that the premium fee will only be for one year, and that was true for a few years, then apply huge increases for those domain names.

I am at a loss why ICANN permit a registry to seemingly flout the protections that were carefully built within the new gTLD registry agreement that names not be reclassified as premium while still being continuously registered.

I appreciate what Porkbun contributed above about going to bat when names are reclassified in error by the registry. Now and then at other registries these cases are a technical mixup. I have encountered once a single name wrongly reclassified with a different registry, and when informed it was corrected.

I have no information re .bond whether this is one or many names reclassified. In .sbs and .cfd it was a large number.

ShortDot it would be welcome to have you comment on these cases. As far as I can see they do not have a representative at NamePros on the official list.

While this is a registry, not a registrar, created problem, if registrars heard from enough disgruntled registrants maybe there would be sufficient pressure that something would happen. At least one major registrar does not handle ShortDot extensions, I believe.

-Bob

 

[ryan87]

Since the renewal was nearing (2nd april), I've escalated and shared my concern with name.com (including info that registry non-responsive) through ticket and finally they agreed to reach out to registry. The registry responded to them (as expected) and agreed to revise the price to original renewal price and finally renewed the domain yesterday.

I was sort of hoping you'd end up making an ICANN complaint, but I'm glad you got it resolved before you had to renew. I was annoyed that I had to renew mine with the premium status and I would have had to let it drop if the price had been increased like yours was.

I think it's important to get a complaint or two about this into the public record. That's why I went straight to an ICANN complaint after making a reasonable effort to work with the registrar and two attempts to contact the registry. A single, well documented, acknowledged, published complaint proves this issue can occur and is more valuable than all of the specualtion online combined (at least in my opinion).

I did not select the option to stay anonymous when filing my complaint. I'm not thrilled about having my name on something that goes against the interests of the multi-billion dollar (registry) industry, but I hope that having something on the public record can help others in the future.

I had a broker reach out with an offer to purchase my domain recently. Speculate about that coincidence. Lol.

 

[bismisoft]

I was sort of hoping you'd end up making an ICANN complaint, but I'm glad you got it resolved before you had to renew. I was annoyed that I had to renew mine with the premium status and I would have had to let it drop if the price had been increased like yours was.

I think it's important to get a complaint or two about this into the public record. That's why I went straight to an ICANN complaint after making a reasonable effort to work with the registrar and two attempts to contact the registry. A single, well documented, acknowledged, published complaint proves this issue can occur and is more valuable than all of the specualtion online combined (at least in my opinion).

I did not select the option to stay anonymous when filing my complaint. I'm not thrilled about having my name on something that goes against the interests of the multi-billion dollar (registry) industry, but I hope that having something on the public record can help others in the future.

I had a broker reach out with an offer to purchase my domain recently. Speculate about that coincidence. Lol.

Agree with you, and that was the plan if this was not resolved by the renewal time. At this point i've to give the benefit of doubt and make an assumption that Shortdot communication chain is broken and they didn't get the message one way or the other.

As soon as name.com made the effort and tried to reach out their contact inside ShortDot, the matter was resolved in a day. In addition we're buying from registrar (we're their customer) and not from registry, our point of contact should be always the registrar imo.

Congrats on the offer, that's good news hope you make a nice and profitable sale.

 

[bismisoft]

So you confirmed that this is a price increase done by the registry and not the registrar?

that what name.com support says in the ticket responses

 

[bismisoft]

If it was reclassified as a premium while being registered, escalate to ICANN.

keep in mind though, there are premiums being discounted for the first year, with higher renewal fees when renewal is due. totally legit as per ICANN.

Way back it was the wild west when it comes to domains, regarding ngtlds, that's still the case.

ICANN leaves them a lot of wiggle room. Which is a disgrace if you'd ask me.

In this case it was not a hand reg, it was aftermarket purchase + immediate transfer fee/renewal paid for a year which was regular fee not a premium, so 100% sure doesn't fall into that category.

 

[bismisoft]

What!? I've never heard of that. Would you be willing to share registrar names or links to tutorials that reference it? That's a nasty trap for regular users that don't understand the subtle difference.



I agree. The registrars are the only one in decent a position to advocate for registrants. I just wanted to point out that registrars are getting a raw deal too.



It may be worth reaching out to Epik support to see if they'll confirm the pricing classification for you. That's what I did with Namecheap and Porkbun. It helps because having two registrars confirm the non-premium pricing classification demonstrates that it wasn't a mistake by a registrar. If both of them say it was non-premium, that's a really good indicator the registry had it listed as non-premium since the registry is the common denominator that everyone is using to get their pricing classification info.

Epik receipt already confirms in separate lines aftermarket purchase + transfer/renewal fee and year later transferred to @name.com with the same transfer/renewal fee (again non-premium)

 

[DomainNature]

Additionally I will say "I even was not buying new clothes and shoes just to make sure I have enough money to renew my domains so one day I could sell them to recuperate the investments, but they took everything from me even the opportunity to eat well and sleep well" I m not joking I will take pics of my clothes with holes in them.
edit: forgot to add another truth "I did not even do repairs in my apartment for 30 years and when I had the chance I didn't do the needed renovations but invested all the money into domains to feed their registry and all the involved organs" I have allot of evidence.
Because of fear of not enough money I even did not go out to get into relationships to have a wife like other people and maybe make kids, they have everything but I have to be in solitude until today, grabbers.

 

[LoveCatchyDomains]

As mentioned in previous post, tried several times though different ways to contact ShortDotDomains, no response or acknowledgment at all (their twitter is active but still no response from there either).

Since the renewal was nearing (2nd april), I've escalated and shared my concern with name.com (including info that registry non-responsive) through ticket and finally they agreed to reach out to registry. The registry responded to them (as expected) and agreed to revise the price to original renewal price and finally renewed the domain yesterday.

Wish they would have done this in the first place (a month ago) this whole unnecessary nightmare could have been avoided. Well, we all learn it the hard way otherwise it's not learning

Excellent!
Your persistence worked! And thank you for sharing this with the NP forum. You have demonstrated that there may be recourse through the registrars to advocate for fair renewal pricing with these "premium" domains.

 

[bismisoft]

@LoveCatchyDomains Although coincidence, love your quote in the signature, applies perfectly to this situation

"The important thing is not to stop questioning." Einstein

 

[bismisoft]

All this conversation for a .bond name that will never sell anyway lol

Maybe do something creative with your free time?

I think two different things got mixed up here.

@ryan87 is talking about his .help domain that is having similar premium classification issue and files ICANN complaint and meanwhile he got an broker offer

 

[LoveCatchyDomains]

The registrars can't change the classification. Only the registries can. I'm 99% sure the registries hate it as much as us registrants because they operate on thin margins and a support incident to deal with pricing reclassification is going to dwarf any profit they're making on a non-premium domain.

Well, the registrar that I moved virtually all of my domains from seemed to classify all their domains as "premium." And, instead of being registrants, those purchasing domains were only deemed "subscribers."

Over a year ago, I researched this, and one domain tutorial suggested avoiding registrars that only provide "subscriptions" to domain names. Allegedly the rights of the "domain subscribers" are more limited with those registrars.

So does your registrar also label you only as a "subscriber?" It still may be a registry issue, but that angle might be worth considering---even if for considering any options of changing to a different registrar.

 

[branding]

If it was reclassified as a premium while being registered, escalate to ICANN.

keep in mind though, there are premiums being discounted for the first year, with higher renewal fees when renewal is due. totally legit as per ICANN.

Way back it was the wild west when it comes to domains, regarding ngtlds, that's still the case.

ICANN leaves them a lot of wiggle room. Which is a disgrace if you'd ask me.

 

[forge]

If it was reclassified as a premium while being registered, escalate to ICANN.

I know for certain that a few of my .biz names were reclassified "premium" a few years after acquiring them (bought from other domainers) though, thankfully, as yet the renewal fees have not increased (other than minimally). However (as I mentioned in another thread) once dropped, the registration fee blows up significantly (in some cases high $xxx level at least).

What has happened in OP's case though is outrageous to say the least.

@DomainNature per your latest post