registries gTLD registries cannot legally change the pricing of renewals at their whim.

[robaireg]

this calls into question whether a domainer is an OWNER or a RENTER. (legally speaking) do you know? do you care to know? (I do) ...

if a gTLD registry (new extension administrator, ie: famous 4 media, donuts, uniregistry, or any of 12 other big ones) were able to change the annual pricing on ''selected domains'' that they personally felt were now ''premium'' (but weren't at the point of purchase) it would be the worst kind of business extortion. it would be predation. it would also be 100% illegal.

when you buy a domain you don't get an email saying ''thank you for renting this domain on a year to year basis'' ... you get an email saying ''thank you for your purchase''.

a purchase is where you buy something and then you own it. if someone administers a domain extension they do not own the domains they administer. ask ICANN about this and read the application that the registry submitted in order to run that domain, the ''serve the public with total and ongoing integrity language'' there is a lot of that language because public trust was a dominant factor in ICANN's awarding any extension ...

neither do they have any legal right to ''shake out'' owners from whom they would now like to ''steal back'' selected domains that they wish to own for themselves. the only way they could steal back domains from the rightful owners would be to massively raise the renewals on those selected domains. ANY court should see through such a transparent scam.

that would amount to theft plain and simple. so it gets back to the question- do you OWN your domain or do you rent it? from what I see all the language points to the fact you own it. the renewal fees are supposedly there to cover all admin expenses by the registrar ....and for a sweetener, ICANN ... ALLOWED THEM to set a premium price in selected products at the initial sale point. ONLY.

this is deemed legal because the buyer knows in advance what the yearly renewal will be, and ''caveat emptor''... if you don't like that fee, don't buy it. BUT ... once it is BOUGHT .....

1) curious that domainers have no national and international association to protect their basic rights. the way say, any other property owner would have such an association.
2) I propose the ..... DOMAINER PROTECTION ASSOCIATION. an international body with the sole purpose of looking after the legal rights of domain OWNERS. (not renters) funded by modest dues, say $ 5 per year for every domain owner deductible on the 1st purchase.

I saw the thread today where the q. is asked whether gTLD registries should be able to arbitrarily ''reset'' the renewal rates on any domain they see fit to ''steal back''. (because it would have just one purpose and that would be to steal it back)

the answer is no, that is 100% illegal and predatory. you cannot do stuff like that in a democratic society, otherwise you'd have legal extortion and theft. ''steal it by jacking the fee 10000%, and then give it to your buddies at the former cheap price again'' ..... . NO that is 100% illegal. and if they missed a ''good name'' that they 'should '' have made premium, then it is their omission, not the buyers.

I have heard instances of fee-price ''resets'' for say NN's... but only at the point of purchase, the day of purchase or 1 or 2 days after ... where the legal wording was already in place about the premium value of those domains.

in that case it was a tech-glitch that allowed those names through to sale at the regular price. but ... once it is bought and has a new OWNER ..... an owner not a renter ..... no way can you legally steal something back by resetting the annual fee at your own whim ..... . courts would (SHOULD) laugh at this, it is so predatory and transparently illegal.

domainers .... associate. band together. $5/yr. is not much. & it's overdue.

 

[UVnames]

I was going to save this for another thread, but perhaps I'll just explain what I'm currently dealing with here. And maybe you can all advise me on the best way to handle it.

I registered "domain.extension" in March of 2015 for 2 years. I paid $28.48 in total. It's important to note that I didn't buy this name Landrush, in fact it had been in GA for over a month. I was surprised it wasn't registered yet, but more on that later.

I decided I wanted to market the name in November 2015, so I was doing some heavy outbound marketing. Emails, calls, stirring up some interest in the name. It was going well, I had a number of people interested in it. To sweeten things, I offered to pay for the full 10 years of registration so they wouldn't have to worry with maintenance, etc. (these were REALLY non-savvy potential buyers, I wanted to make it easy for them).

Come late December, I decide to renew for the full 10 years. Now, I'm a total n00b, so I didn't realize that 10 was the maximum. So I tried to purchase 10 additional years (making it 12 years).

There was an error. I try again, thinking it's probably my credit card. Another error. I try again, using a different checkout method. Same error. Now, it's important to note, that on the checkout page the renewal price was congruent with my initial registration price.

I contact support for help, and they tell me that I'm a n00b and can only renew for another 8 years. So I try again. Same error. They attributed it to a system flaw, were able to bypass the system, and allowed me to complete the transaction.

Now, I notice that this domain has been "pending" for a few weeks. So in January I ask what's going on, why hasn't my renewal been updated? The registrar takes a really long time to get back to me and finally, with a different support person, tells me:

"The price for an 8 year renewal of the domain name [domain.extension] would come to: $34,000.00 USD
Unfortunately we do not appear to have received a payment to be able to cover this cost, so we will not be able to complete the 8 year renewal for this domain name unless we can arrange further payment with you.
As a gesture of goodwill we can offer you 1 year free registration of the domain name [domain.extension]. If you would like to renew the domain for the remaining 7 years to complete your request, I can offer you a discounted rate of $26,250 USD for the 7 years renewal."

WOAH.

Now, I had a few problems with this. The first, being the obvious hike in fee. Nowhere was I notified of this renewal fee change. In fact, in the checkout dialogue, the price was still the non-premium price. A month prior I had tried to renew it for the same price I originally registered it with.

Which leads to the second problem: I was already charged, not once, but TWICE for my attempts to renew the domain. I was charged once when the system kept giving me an error, and I was charged a second time for when support was able to bypass their system. Once again, this charge was on my credit card statement for the original non-premium registration price.

That's pretty much where I'm at now. Of course, support has NO idea how to handle this and is taking very long to answer each subsequent correspondence.

 

[brindle123]

Rent, own, borrow, sub-let, lease,squat whatever you want to call it, don't pay your renewal fees and it ain't yours anymore. Not sure what you don't understand about that. Own or rent, it isn't yours no matter what you paid for it.

So you as the "owner" get to set your renewal fees for the foreseeable future?? HMMM

That's great news. I'm never going to raise my renewal fees on any of my domains ever.

This is not directed to UVnames.

 

[brindle123]

UVnames

I would sit down with a pot of coffee in me and read and re-read your purchase and user agreements from when you originally bought the domain. Take notes, write down any questions you are not sure about. Then contact a lawyer. You might have a case, you might be out of luck. Also check to see if there have been any changes to the agreements you made with the original purchase.

This ALMOST proves my point that we don't "OWN" the domain and that fees can and do change. I say almost because it is not resolved yet.

 

[Perceptron]

@UVnames Wow, it is ridiculous!

We should sue ICANN actually!!!

 

[UVnames]

Yes, certainly would advise everyone read what they agree to unless you're comfortable risking the consequences.

Unfortunately legal help is probably way more than I can afford. We'll see what happens though, I don't plan to just give up.

I definitely do agree with OP @mwg3kpc that we should band together and create some type of protection for ourselves. With ALL aspects of domaining. People are getting squashed WAY harder than me because of bogus UDRPs, hijacking, etc.

It's a game, but if people band together, we can all come out ahead.

 

[Domain Galleria]

... it's a huge legal mess they could start if they pulled stunts like trying to steal back domains that they now feel like owning.

Sure they wouldn't want to hold a snake by its tail.

 

[brindle123]

I was very suspicious of the new tlds because of their pricing and holding the best domains that work best for the extension that they started.

Someone/ICANN let the crackheads hold all the crack. Crackheads will do anything to get their crack/domains.

This is what I see happening over time with some of the new tlds.

1) Very low registration rates due to sub-par extensions and high prices. There are not many keywords that work great with some of the new tlds.

2) Very low income due to 1)

3) Renewal fees go up to make up for 2)

4) Only the good domains that work with the ext will be renewed. All others will get dropped due to 1)+3)

5) Renewal prices becomes so high that good domains that work with the ext will not be renewed, therefore the registry will get the good domains back. Call it theft or good business model for them.

6) The registry will develop and keep the good/premium domains that they sold initially for $$,$$$$

7) You lose the domain/s you thought you "owned"

They get rich and there's not a damn thing you can do about it except .RANT on NamePros.

 

[ZapNano]

i guess this is a thread in response to my gtld=ripoff thread.

You are completely wrong about domains. Just like a piece of real estate property, you do not own the domain name or a piece of property no matter how much you initially bought it for. Don't pay your renewal fees and you will lose the domain back to the registrar!

If you don't pay your property taxes, you will lose your property. Renewal fees and property taxes go up all the time. When the value of my home went up so did my taxes. I have not seen any proof that your renewal fees can only go up $5 or $5000 per yr. When you renew your domain, that is the only time that your renewal fee is guaranteed. It can not be increased during the period of your registration except to notify you that when your registration is up there can or will be an increase. What that increase is, is not up to the "owner" of the domain. If you pay for a 10yr registration, fees can go up the very next day to whatever, but you don't have to pay the higher fee until your registration is up.

UVnames posted in my thread that his renewal fee went from $14 to almost $4000. I'm not sure where he is at with that at this moment.

Land/houses VS Domain Investments are not alike. In my opinion, real estate investment are solid. Land/houses investment have more advancement. They are concrete investment. Land/houses etc. taxes are based on location and the current real estate prices. You can do lots of things if you own real estate properties. Selling and renting. You get steady income; rent price wil stay the same. Even the housing market fluctuates. Using the same strategies with real estate investment, is unfair and unreasoanble. Registrars manipulates prices fees based on temporary sparks! Domains are not the same as real estate investment!
Example: you have to own a decent dn to make small profits. Unlike, houses investment; you don't have to own a premium houses to make profits. Even shack houses makes steady profits. Analyzed the rest of the situation.

 

[brindle123]

Land/houses VS Domain Investments are not alike. In my opinion, real estate investment are solid. Land/houses investment have more advancement. They are concrete investment. Land/houses etc. taxes are based on location and the current real estate prices. You can do lots of things if you own real estate properties. Selling and renting. You get steady income; rent price wil stay the same. Even the housing market fluctuates. Using the same strategies with real estate investment, is unfair and unreasoanble. Registrars manipulates prices fees based on temporary sparks! Domains are not the same as real estate investment!
Example: you have to own a decent dn to make small profits. Unlike, houses investment; you don't have to own a premium houses to make profits. Even shack houses makes steady profits. Analyzed the rest of the situation.

I disagree:

1) Domains and real estate have many similarities. You can rent, lease, sell, develop a domain or a house.

2) Real estate is not a solid investment. Hello housing bubble 2008. Massive foreclosures and value drops. Domains dropped like crazy during that time too!

3) Domains are based on location also. Cars.com is like the penthouse. crappyjunkcars.com is like living in your moms basement. The closer you get to the penthouse the more value your have like RentCars.com

4) Domains and home values go up and down. Look at NNNN.com they have gone up.

5) Landlords can and do raise rents. It's happened to me many times. Registrars can and do raise renewal fees. It's happened to me and all who have been doing this for some time.

6) If you own a crappy house, usually you have crappy tenants and your maintenance costs go up therefore lowering your profits if any. You can actually lose money with crappy tenants.

There are fees to own an home and there are fees to own a domain.

A domain is better than a house in some aspects. You can buy one for $10 and sell it for $1000000. Not many homes can go up in value like that. If you own a crappy house or domain it's value might not increase ever, at least with the domain there is only (usually) a small renewal fee to maintain it. A house will fall apart if you let it sit there and the costs to maintain it each year can be a lot.

No one can throw a rock thru my domains window or spray paint the side of my domain!

 

[ZapNano]

I disagree:

1) Domains and real estate have many similarities. You can rent, lease, sell, develop a domain or a house.

2) Real estate is not a solid investment. Hello housing bubble 2008. Massive foreclosures and value drops. Domains dropped like crazy during that time too!

3) Domains are based on location also. Cars.com is like the penthouse. crappyjunkcars.com is like living in your moms basement. The closer you get to the penthouse the more value your have like RentCars.com

4) Domains and home values go up and down. Look at NNNN.com they have gone up.

5) Landlords can and do raise rents. It's happened to me many times. Registrars can and do raise renewal fees. It's happened to me and all who have been doing this for some time.

6) If you own a crappy house, usually you have crappy tenants and your maintenance costs go up therefore lowering your profits if any. You can actually lose money with crappy tenants.

There are fees to own an home and there are fees to own a domain.

A domain is better than a house in some aspects. You can buy one for $10 and sell it for $1000000. Not many homes can go up in value like that. If you own a crappy house or domain it's value might not increase ever, at least with the domain there is only (usually) a small renewal fee to maintain it. A house will fall apart if you let it sit there and the costs to maintain it each year can be a lot.

No one can throw a rock thru my domains window or spray paint the side of my domain!

Example: If you own a one unit building apartment, and it consist of 10 rooms; at staring cheapest rent of $1000 for each room. Analized: $1000 X 12= $12,000X10=$120,000X10= $1.2M.
Assuming the building is in good shape... You get all these income as long as you own the property. This is just for 10 years numbers...calculation.
How many people in the world that owns a dn that's wort few millions?

 

[Kate]

I was going to save this for another thread, but perhaps I'll just explain what I'm currently dealing with here. And maybe you can all advise me on the best way to handle it.

I registered "domain.extension" in March of 2015 for 2 years. I paid $28.48 in total. It's important to note that I didn't buy this name Landrush, in fact it had been in GA for over a month. I was surprised it wasn't registered yet, but more on that later.

...

"The price for an 8 year renewal of the domain name [domain.extension] would come to: $34,000.00 USD

You are not alone. Berkens himself reported a similar story.

There have also been reports of 'clawbacks': reserved names have been allocated to clients 'by mistake', while they were never supposed to be made available in the first place. They were subsequently repossessed.

But it doesn't matter whose fault it is. The customer is still the injured party.
The new gTLD program is a botched operation, it was released while still in beta mode.

We should sue ICANN actually!!!

I think this is likely to happen. I expect that there will be one or more lawsuits against Icann, possibly a class action.
And they know it, that's why they have provisioned the legal risk. They know what they are doing. But people always try to take advantage of the system because if they think they can get away with it.

 

[UVnames]

You are not alone. Berkens himself reported a similar story.

Do you happen to know where I can find this story? Would definitely like to know more.

 

[Kate]

http://www.thedomains.com/2015/09/2...-in-the-new-gtld-space-goes-to-mind-machines/

PS: read the comments by George Kirikos

 

[UVnames]

http://www.thedomains.com/2015/09/2...-in-the-new-gtld-space-goes-to-mind-machines/

PS: read the comments by George Kirikos

Thanks for sharing. Yes, this is most likely exactly what is happening to me. I plan on fighting this. The main difference is that, for me, the money has exchanged hands already. The registrar has my money. I've paid for the renewal - twice, in fact.

 

[brindle123]

Example: If you own a one unit building apartment, and it consist of 10 rooms; at staring cheapest rent of $1000 for each room. Analized: $1000 X 12= $12,000X10=$120,000X10= $1.2M.
Assuming the building is in good shape... You get all these income as long as you own the property. This is just for 10 years numbers...calculation.
How many people in the world that owns a dn that's wort few millions?

Do you own any property?

Your example doesn't factor in the original price of the property, the property taxes, insurance, maintenance, etc.
If you don't understand my analogy between domains and property then you maybe shouldn't own either.

 

[brindle123]

Kate
Thank you for posting that link.

It's a very good read and I suggest everyone on here go read it and the comments!!!

 

[robaireg]

thanks for posting about your experience here. knowing the extension would also be useful.

<Why anyone> would build a website on such a shaky foundation, where future costs are uncertain, is beyond me……. If highly sophisticated individuals like Mike are seeing their investment turn to dust, imagine the fate of *unsophisticated* domain name buyers….

Okay but didn’t Donuts get written in to their contracts that they couldn’t increase the renewal price willy-nilly?

 

[robaireg]

need to recap a bit ....

gTLD's have been marketed on a price structure that didn't let them sell the way the registries might have wanted. so some of them this year (referring mostly to Famous$ Media based in Gibraltar) in conjunction with registrars like Alpnames (... or Hexonet, Cheapnames, Dynadot etc) have put on 1st year fire sales. the extensions include .win, .bid, .date, .loan, .party, and a few others.

these F4M domain names normally priced at 30 or 40$ have gone onsale for $ one dollar the 1st year. this business model depends on renewals the 2nd year and thereafter to make the move worthwhile. but the only names that will renew at the high rate will a) be working websites or b) higher valued investment names. the rest will drop. it's not a sound business model. it's a lure and tease model. a solid model would have uniform value prices (comparable to .com or better) and would engender loyalty by owners. this breeds not loyalty but speculation.

donuts have priced their names around 30 usd, this includes .team, .school, .money, etc. they're not holding 1st year fire sales. the long term business model of domain pricing has a lot of influence in how the market grows and develops. for example with .top you have a cheaper cost and wide initial appeal. esp in China.

the legal language in the buyer contract has to make sense. you can't have legalese that is deceptive and expect a court to respect that fine-print. in any transaction there is the assumption of a fair intention. there is also the duty to make those fine-print risks well known to the buyer and if this isn't done (ie- the confusion is intentional) there is lots of room for dismissal of any claim. to suddenly jack up a price of renewal with no prior warning is not sound business practice.

the Berkens article is interesting - 1st hand experience and the only right response in fact. excellent article. those names were wrenched away, obviously. 100% predatory. no ifs and buts, predatory attack-business.

 

[robaireg]

.. in this case I registered several dot-loan last month at $1 each. some like homepurchase.loan, housebuying.loan, 30day.loan, variablerate.loan, carbuying.loan, seedcapital.loan, smallenterprise.loan, houseequity.loan, low-cost.loan & 5 others ... .... obviously at 1 $ you can't go wrong. it's a 1 year speculation.

similarly ... birth-day.party .. 1km.racing, 10km.racing ... chinatrade.review ..electoral.win ... oh yes .... G0D.faith ...

pt being, it's a 1$ speculation on something you already know will cost 30 or 40 in a year time. the surprise is already known. that's the key.

 

[ZapNano]

Do you own any property?

Your example doesn't factor in the original price of the property, the property taxes, insurance, maintenance, etc.
If you don't understand my analogy between domains and property then you maybe shouldn't own either.

The numbers are based on cheap rent and not including the value of the property ( building ) maintence cost and other expenses assuming are minimal. Y it doesn't factor? $1 rent each month: $1 X 12= X 10years X 10 years = ? Question: I own a properties =
My last contribution for this topic..

 

[ZapNano]

.. in this case I registered several dot-loan last month at $1 each. some are interesting, like homepurchase.loan, housebuying.loan, 30day.loan, variablerate.loan, carbuying.loan, seedcapital.loan, smallenterprise.loan, houseequity.loan, low-cost.loan & 5 others ... .... obviously at 1 $ you can't go wrong. it's a 1 year speculation.

similarly ... birth-day.party, oh yes .... G0D.faith ...

Yah, just wait on your next renewal; surprise...

 

[ZapNano]

.. in this case I registered several dot-loan last month at $1 each. some are interesting, like homepurchase.loan, housebuying.loan, 30day.loan, variablerate.loan, carbuying.loan, seedcapital.loan, smallenterprise.loan, houseequity.loan, low-cost.loan & 5 others ... .... obviously at 1 $ you can't go wrong. it's a 1 year speculation.

similarly ... birth-day.party .. 1km.racing, 10km.racing ... chinatrade.review ..electoral.win ... oh yes .... G0D.faith ...

By the way, I like those names..

 

[robaireg]

donuts held back several names in dot-team, mostly the obvious ones like the major sports (baseball, basketball, hockey, football etc --- all are quote- ''registry-reserved''). I dug a bit and found the 2nd tier sports like rugby, curling and darts. rugby was premium but the others weren't. I have sites on these. I'm expecting to renew at 30 and am not expecting a surprise. it promises to be interesting. we're going to see where this goes.

just wait on your next renewal; surprise.

not a surprise and that is the difference, it is all right in the open.

By the way, I like those names..

thank you and also thanks for extending the final post awhile. no hurry to go.

 

[ZapNano]

donuts held back several names in dot-team, mostly the obvious ones like the major sports (baseball, basketball, hockey, football etc --- all are quote- ''registry-reserved''). I dug a bit and found the 2nd tier sports like rugby, curling and darts. rugby was premium but the others weren't. I have sites on these. I'm expecting to renew at 30 and am not expecting a surprise. it promises to be interesting. we're going to see where this goes.

not a surprise and that is the difference, it is all right in the open.

Yah, i have purchased some premium dn. And I'm not expecting to pay renewal fees 10 times more than the price that I have initialy paid for it. Example: if I pay $250 for a dn; my renewal fee for additional years should be the same or lower. Not 10x!

 

[DU]

Well, it is allowed under ICANN policy with the new registries. They can raise price as they please.
There have already been multiple cases of this happening.

You are comparing more traditional tangible goods to what is essentially a lease.
You are leasing a domain from a registry.

http://domainnamewire.com/2014/05/20/new-tlds-and-a-lack-of-price-caps/

Brad

A lot of this is hyperbole and unrealistic and there are some protections in place for the registrant (which are mostly glossed over in that article). This whole idea of massive price increases across the board makes as much sense (realistically) as me saying that when the .COM contract comes up in 2018 .com prices will be setup to match the new gTLDs.

Some prices increases are valid but and have been in .TV or .IO for example - but these are mostly related to registrar discounts expiring rather than actual price increases (potato/potahto).

Yah, i have purchased some premium dn. And I'm not expecting to pay renewal fees 10 times more than the price that I have initialy paid for it. Example: if I pay $250 for a dn; my renewal fee for additional years should be the same or lower. Not 10x!

And it will be. They can't raise the price of just your name - it would need to be across the board in equal measure to all domains (and premiums were setup with initial registration caveat)