GoDaddy May Have to Stop ‘60 Day’ Transfer Policy

[Sameh]

From DomainNameWire

ICANN advisory would clarify the circumstances when a registrar can deny a domain name transfer request.


Many people who have tried to transfer a domain name from GoDaddy to another registrar have faced a hurdle. If they’ve changed their whois information within the past 60 days, GoDaddy will deny the transfer for “security reasons”. Only one other major registrar, Network Solutions, has been known to do this.

But the practice may come to an end thanks to an ICANN advisory. I actually mentioned this problem to Vint Cerf, Chair of ICANN’s Board of Directors, at a Domain Roundtable conference two years ago. He was surprised to hear about GoDaddy’s policy.

The new ICANN advisory, which is in its public comment period for the next 30 days, states:

1. Registrars are prohibited from denying a domain name transfer request based on non-payment of fees for pending or future registration periods during the Auto-Renew Grace Period
2. A registrant change to Whois information is not a valid basis for denying a transfer request.

The latter specifically targets user and other registrar’s frustration with GoDaddy. In practice, you can push a transfer out of GoDaddy if you take the time to complain to the Office of the President. But GoDaddy’s customer service reps frequently site “ICANN policy” for denying the transfers, which simply isn’t true.

Rather than write this in my own words, below is a post from a small registrar, Tiger Technologies LLC, about this practice (from ICANN’s public comment forum):

I applaud this action from ICANN. Over the last year, many legitimate registrants have been unable to transfer their domain names to us because GoDaddy (and more recently Network Solutions) denied transfers on this arbitrary basis.

GoDaddy claims that their policy is necessary for security reasons, but that claim is specious. As a smaller registrar that focuses on customer service, we pursued every one of these cases on behalf of our customers, and not one of the transfers was fraudulent.

In fact, GoDaddy eventually agreed to release most of these domain names to us after we complained. But we shouldn’t have to argue with GoDaddy to get a legitimate transfer completed: it’s cost us many uncompensated hours of our time, and we’ve seen transfers delayed for days or weeks even in cases where we’ve been able to help the registrant. In some cases, legitimate registrants gave up on the transfer and renewed with
GoDaddy against their will because we couldn’t resolve it before the domain name expired. This kind of nonsense is *exactly* what the transfer policy was designed to stop…

…In short, the additional transfer restrictions imposed by some registrars are not justified. The harm these restrictions do to legitimate registrants far outweighs the rare security benefits.
–
Robert Mathews, Tiger Technologies

Article Link

 

[Dave_Z]

this rule doesn't really affect selling and reselling domains

Tell that to the people around here and in other domain forums complaining. :D

 

[AdoptableDomains]

Godaddy has gone overboard. 60 days is way too long for that reason. There are easier and more secure ways to stop fraud than holding a domain transfer two months because someone corrected a typo before transfer or changed an email contact. It's more a customer retention tactic than security IMHO.

I could come up with a dozen better ways to add security without the 60 day hold. One off the top of my head would be to email a whois change approval by email to the email address before the changed with accept or deny choices. If someone hijacked an account and tried to change any whois data or accessed the auth code, it would email an approval request to the previous email or account holder email. They would be notified a change was made to whois and give a chance to reverse it at an approval page before a transfer takes place. Change approved, end of story. Change not approved, put change or transfer on hold for 14 days before implementation.

 

[nikki o]

I have never liked this at all, it really is very annoying that GD force this on domain owners and it is all about forcing us to keep our domains with them.

 

[Domagon]

Eventually GoDaddy will likely do away with the policy simply due to competition alone...

GoDaddy loses some business due to their 60 day restriction ... the question is how much - I bet at some point soon, they will likely find continuing such their 60 day "hostage" policy to be unprofitable.

Ron

 

[equity78]

Fonzie your post is right on, if I buy a domain from you and want to move it to Fabulous because I hate GO DADDY I should be allowed to move it whenever I want to move the domain.

 

[Dave_Z]

the question is how much

Indeed. Unfortunately if it's "negligible", well...

 

[fonzie_007]

Fonzie your post is right on, if I buy a domain from you and want to move it to Fabulous because I hate GO DADDY I should be allowed to move it whenever I want to move the domain.

One of the (various) reasons why I am moving away from GD completely.

I've got about 150 domains left at GD, but they have lost about 600 domains of my business and probably the rest of the 150 once they are up for renewal.

 

[Mark]

I've weeded myself down to about 10 domains there myself :blink: - And really try not to bid on anything (Mediocre at Best) thats registered there any longer.

 

[KingDon]

I just so happened to be transferring out one of my old names that was in some obscure account; and I figured that I should learn their "bend over" process to get the rest of m y names out.

So I'm on the phone with support for 20 minutes, and the guy explains that I have to do each one separately, and then have to click OK 3 times to get an authorization code; but not to worry, the 60 day rule doesn't apply; I asked Three times!!!

So I spend another half hour clicking, clicking, copy and pasting names and authorization codes for 30 old domains I had there, set up the transfer through enom, approve the transfers, and then the e-mails start coming in from godaddy.

"The transfer of *****.COM from GoDaddy.com to another registrar could not be completed for the following reason(s):

Express written objection to the transfer from the Transfer Contact. (e.g. - email, fax, paper document or other processes by which the Transfer Contact has expressly and voluntarily objected through opt-in means)."

These guys are ruthless liars, the guy let me spend all that time trying to get my names out, and now they send me this crap. Some companies earn their customers service, guys like this trap them into business, scum!