How good is NameSilo?

[nixgurus]

Hello Guys,

I want to know about namesilo. How good they are? Any disadvantage having domains with them?

Currently I am using Godaddy, Name.com and namecheap

 

[alanchau]

Haven't posted in a while, but thought it was worth noting that NameSilo has been absolutely great for me. I've been using NameSilo in lieu of eNom for domain reseller purposes and they have fit the bill very nicely. Their customer service is excellent and their user interface has been very well designed; not to mention that their prices are amazing.

 

[Key]

I'm using namesilo for sometime. Nice layout, better support and free privacy. Great service overall.

 

[ehits]

There was an issue with one of my domains that a company felt violated their copyright. NameSilo sent me the DMCA complaint and disabled the domain without waiting for a reply, which I was upset about.

The domain didn't infringe and I will be moving my domains away from them!

Stuff like that scares the crap out of me.

Was gonna take the plunge with NameSilo
but for the above and for other reasons
gonna stick with my current registrar.

 

[carob]

Have found them good, but maybe not the right place for a sensitive domain from what people say here. It used to be that Moniker's TOS were good for that but I have no confidence in Moniker's systems now.

 

[sbweb]

I use Godaddy and Namesilo. I use Godaddy for domain investing, and Namesilo for domains I plan to develop.

Reason:
I can usually find a coupon for new registrations on Godaddy, so you can get them if you plan on flipping the domain within a year. NameSilo offers cheap renewal prices and free whois, so it's good for domains you plan on developing.

 

[Soofi]

How is NameSilo API for dropcatching domain names?

 

[webm]

Well, Namesilo API is pretty much hit or miss. First of all, it runs only for the drop catching time (2 hours) of com net. Second, in peak times - it starts going unresponsive. But on a good lucky day, it throws the response at 1 per second.

 

[xtmoney]

dynadot beat namesilo in most of the time.

 

[Soofi]

Thanks guys, dynadot preferred by most I believr. how about namesilo for .in domain names?

 

[webm]

Thanks guys, dynadot preferred by most I believr. how about namesilo for .in domain names?

Namesilo doesn't support .in names

 

[Name Trader]

Pheenix beats Dynadot most of the time.

 

[xtmoney]

yep its true

Pheenix beats Dynadot most of the time.

 

[Tom Bradoutski]

namesilo is very scary in my opinion. i have had several discussions with them about dMCA policy and their terms of service which says: if anyone feels embarrassed or slandered by your domain, we can suspend it

that is very very very scary. look at all the racist, hateful comments on youtube comments or all the racist, hateful comments on yahoo - no one is deleting, repossessing, disabling the domains of youtube or yahoo

namesilo has a very very scary terms of service and they refuse to change it - so if your domain name or website could possible "embarrass" someone, namesilo can revoke it. namesilo does not need a court order according to their terms of service. be very careful with them. if you google namesilo and terms of service, on the first 3 pages, you will see people complaining about namesilo terms of service. even on this thread, a gentlemen had his domain turned off due to a copyright violation - namesilo just turned off his domain and did not bother to hear his side of the story.

 

[Tom Bradoutski]

Stuff like that scares the crap out of me.

Was gonna take the plunge with NameSilo
but for the above and for other reasons
gonna stick with my current registrar.

I just posted the following post about my experience with namesilo terms of service:

namesilo is very scary in my opinion. i have had several discussions with them about dMCA policy and their terms of service which says: if anyone feels embarrassed or slandered by your domain, we can suspend it

that is very very very scary. look at all the racist, hateful comments on youtube comments or all the racist, hateful comments on yahoo - no one is deleting, repossessing, disabling the domains of youtube or yahoo

namesilo has a very very scary terms of service and they refuse to change it - so if your domain name or website could possible "embarrass" someone, namesilo can revoke it. namesilo does not need a court order according to their terms of service. be very careful with them. if you google namesilo and terms of service, on the first 3 pages, you will see people complaining about namesilo terms of service. even on this thread, a gentlemen had his domain turned off due to a copyright violation - namesilo just turned off his domain and did not bother to hear his side of the story.

who wants to live in fear that at any moment all the money and time that you invested in your domain, can be taken away from you with one complaint email/letter to namesilo?

 

[namesilo]

namesilo is very scary in my opinion. i have had several discussions with them about dMCA policy and their terms of service which says: if anyone feels embarrassed or slandered by your domain, we can suspend it

that is very very very scary. look at all the racist, hateful comments on youtube comments or all the racist, hateful comments on yahoo - no one is deleting, repossessing, disabling the domains of youtube or yahoo

namesilo has a very very scary terms of service and they refuse to change it - so if your domain name or website could possible "embarrass" someone, namesilo can revoke it. namesilo does not need a court order according to their terms of service. be very careful with them. if you google namesilo and terms of service, on the first 3 pages, you will see people complaining about namesilo terms of service. even on this thread, a gentlemen had his domain turned off due to a copyright violation - namesilo just turned off his domain and did not bother to hear his side of the story.

I am sorry, but that is not correct. We do not get into specific cases due to privacy concerns, but the person who posted that (nearly 3 years ago) did not relay the entire situation. I am also not sure what you are referring to regarding googling our company name and terms of service showing people complaining about our terms of service. I just did so and did not see any such conversations. I feel you also misrepresented our TOS insinuating that if anyone feels embarrassed by a site that we can revoke the domain. That is not correct. Our TOS reads that if a site is designed to harass, embarrass, etc. someone else that we may suspend service. If a site is designed solely with the intent of harming another person then it would find itself in violation of our terms. However, this would need to be something very blatant and I do not believe we have ever disabled a domain due to a complaint such as this since the evidence would need to be completely overwhelming for us to take any action.

To address the comment more specifically, our terms of service are not very much different than most other registrars. We clearly ARE NOT in the business of deactivating domains due to frivolous complaints. If we were, we would not be in business, much less being one of the fastest-growing registrars in the world. Also, the Internet would be littered with complaints from our customers if we simply deactivated domains with no notice and not for clear violations for obvious things such as child pornography, web sites with death threats, etc. As with all registrars, we are tasked with ensuring our services are not used to engage in activity that is clearly fraudulent, illegal, etc. However, we advocate for our customers VERY strongly which is why you will not find people complaining about domain deactivations without cause in relation to registering domains with us. This is not the case with many of our competitors. We are happy to put our record up against any other company, and we are very, very confident that we have never, even once, deactivated a domain due to a frivolous complaint or not due to being engaged in obvious misuse. We take this very seriously and the facts speak for themselves.

I am sorry that the poster of this comment is not happy with our terms. I understand that they can appear to be over-reaching, but this is unfortunately what we feel necessary to include to ensure that our services are not misused, and that we have the legal ability to deactivate domains that threaten our ICANN accreditation, or open us up to liability. There are several registrars that simply do not care about sponsoring domains involved in criminal activity, but we are not one of those.

 

[namesilo]

As a follow up, I have been told by our legal team that the reference to suspending domains related to embarrassing a third-party have been removed from our terms as of last night. In case anybody ends up reading here, our current TOS states the following prohibited activities that may result in suspension of service:

Prohibited domain names and illegal activities which may be subject to these provisions include, but are not limited to:

1. Domains and web sites prohibited by the laws of the United States and/or foreign territories in which you conduct business
2. Domains and web sites designed to encourage unlawful behavior by others, such as hate crimes, terrorism and child pornography
3. Domains and web sites that are tortuous or invasive of the privacy of a third party
4. Domains and web sites designed to harm or use unethically minors in any way
5. Domains and web sites involved in the transmission of unsolicited email
6. Domains and web sites involved in unauthorized repetitive, high volume inquires into any of the services provided by us or a third-party
7. Domains and web sites involved in copyright and/or trademark infringement

 

[carob]

There are several registrars that simply do not care about sponsoring domains involved in criminal activity, but we are not one of those.

Hi Namesilo

Thanks for the replies and clarifications. Namesilo only offers domains and parking I believe, so I'm not clear about why your TOS refers to websites. If a website is engaged in illegal activity isn't that an issue for the hosting company?

Obviously a domain alone can be outside the law even without a website, by containing a threat for example. But what happens if someone has leased a domain that is used for a website by someone else?

I see your terms for reporting abuse are here:
http://www.namesilo.com/Support/Abuse-Reporting-Procedures

Also, I agree your TOS are similar to those of other registrars.

 

[Name Trader]

@namesilo - It seems like you have satisfied @Tom Bradoutski's complaints head on. He should now be wholeheartedly recommending your domain registration services, imho. Let's see if he does

 

[namesilo]

Hi Namesilo

Thanks for the replies and clarifications. Namesilo only offers domains and parking I believe, so I'm not clear about why your TOS refers to websites. If a website is engaged in illegal activity isn't that an issue for the hosting company?

Obviously a domain alone can be outside the law even without a website, by containing a threat for example. But what happens if someone has leased a domain that is used for a website by someone else?

I see your terms for reporting abuse are here:
http://www.namesilo.com/Support/Abuse-Reporting-Procedures

Also, I agree your TOS are similar to those of other registrars.

Hi Carob,

Yes, you are correct that the hosting company is typically responsible for the content on web sites. However, there are also a number of things that could bring web site content under the purview of the registrar, such as:

• ICANN requirements that registrars not sponsor domains involved in illegal activity (Section 3.18 of the 2013 RAA) as well as ICANN requirements that registrars maintain an abuse point of contact to handle abuse complaints (section 3.18.2 of the 2013 RAA). ICANN can also revoke a registrar's accreditation if the registrar is found to have permitted illegal activity through use of domains it sponsors (Section 5.5.2.1.3 of the 2013 RAA). There are a few other ICANN-related issues as well.
• Many registries hold registrars accountable and enforce registrars to include certain terms in relation to the improper use of domain names.
• DMCA is another area under which there is possible liability related to domains registered via registrars. This area is murky at best, but three are pretty established safe harbor provisions for registrars who act upon DMCA notices.
• Our system can be used for DNS as well as services such as parking and forwarding. If any of these systems are involved in misuse (including even forwarding a domain to a web site not affiliated with us in any way), then our upstream providers can react by suspending our service.

There are a few other possible scenarios under which a registrar could be held responsible for content on web sites. However, I really want to stress one last time, that these situations are rare. Our goal is to advocate strongly for our customers and to never suspend a domain unless it is clearly involved in illegal activity or blatant misuse. We take this very, very seriously.

 

[namesilo]

@namesilo - It seems like you have satisfied @Tom Bradoutski's complaints head on. He should now be wholeheartedly recommending your domain registration services, imho. Let's see if he does

Thanks Stub - we'll see...

We really do take all feedback very seriously and are always open to improving our services. Our legal team felt that the terms deserved to be re-visited and approved the requested changes within a few hours.

 

[NameOmnia]

I use Godaddy and Namesilo. I use Godaddy for domain investing, and Namesilo for domains I plan to develop.

That was my plan too, also because of Name Silo free privacy, but Dynadot is just as good but don't count on them as drop catchers because they can't even catch their own drops...

 

[carob]

Hi Carob,

Yes, you are correct that the hosting company is typically responsible for the content on web sites. However, there are also a number of things that could bring web site content under the purview of the registrar, such as: ...

Hi Namesilo

Thank you for that very complete and informative answer.

So many TOS issues like this depend on interpretation, which depends on who is doing the interpretation, which comes down to who you trust. I certainly do recommend Namesilo to people and I will keep doing so, not just because the prices are competitive but because from what I can see Namesilo is well run.

 

[Name Trader]

... And has a great Control Panel, imho.

 

[namesilo]

Hi Namesilo

Thank you for that very complete and informative answer.

So many TOS issues like this depend on interpretation, which depends on who is doing the interpretation, which comes down to who you trust. I certainly do recommend Namesilo to people and I will keep doing so, not just because the prices are competitive but because from what I can see Namesilo is well run.

Thanks Carob. We appreciate the feedback, and of course your recommendations of our service

Please feel free to let us know with any other questions or ideas for improvement.

 

[namesilo]

... And has a great Control Panel, imho.

Thanks Stub!