Where does the Butt stop with domains being taken back by registrars and registries?

[citylines]

Hi all,
I was hoping for more advice on Domain Registration.
When you order a Domain Name from a Registrar and in my case it was a new gTLD, then receive notification that the Domain has been registered then later is withdrawn. is it the responsibility of the Registrar who sold the Domain to have realized it was a Premium Domain, therefore should not have sold it, or is it the responsibility of the Domain gTLD owner.

I was wondering how Registration works when your order a Domain does that order go to the Owner of the gTLD
for confirmation of its availability such as a direct link to their servers.

If anyone who has any knowledge of the registration process and who is ultimately responsible for making sure the Domains are available when advertised.
Also a very legal question, hyper theoretically, if I purchased something from a shop at a certain price, then went home for twelve hours, then was told I didn't actually own that item as it was sold too cheap, where does this example sit in the Digital world and in ICANN's eyes.
Any contributions, positive or negative greatly received.
Thanks
Jay

 

[Eric Lyon]

is it the responsibility of the Registrar who sold the Domain to have realized it was a Premium Domain, therefore should not have sold it, or is it the responsibility of the Domain gTLD owner.

It depends who made the mistake. Sometimes, the registry (Domain gTLD Owner) hasn't told the registrar that it was a premium until later and then the registrar has to do what the registry instructs it to do. Other times, the registrar may have made a mistake and didn't mark a domain as premium when they were supposed to.

I was wondering how Registration works when your order a Domain does that order go to the Owner of the gTLD
for confirmation of its availability such as a direct link to their servers.

Each registrar implements a process that is slightly different. They may have taken the purchase order, prematurely placed it in your account, and then tried to register the domain. Once they realized they couldn't register it because the registry rejected it or the registry required more money for the purchase than they charged you, the registrar then has to inform you and remove the domain from your account. There are a lot of things that can cause mistakes/errors.

Also a very legal question, hyper theoretically, if I purchased something from a shop at a certain price, then went home for twelve hours, then was told I didn't actually own that item as it was sold too cheap, where does this example sit in the Digital world and in ICANN's eyes.

Excellent question. My guess is that it's in the registrar's terms of service to cover situations like this but that may not be the case in retail stores that you visit.


I hope this helps,

 

[MapleDots]

Excellent question. My guess is that it's in the registrar's terms of service to cover situations like this but that may not be the case in retail stores that you visit.

In the digital world more and more of our rights as consumers are being taken away by the fine print. To use a service we must basically give away our right to disagree.

 

[Kuffy]

Also a very legal question, hyper theoretically, if I purchased something from a shop at a certain price, then went home for twelve hours, then was told I didn't actually own that item as it was sold too cheap,

This is a very relevant question for a lot of modern stuff, We are used to the fact that when you buy a computer, you don't own the software- Microsoft does. Well that's OK, because you can just install Linux. Did you know that the same applies to the latest cars, you might own the tin, but you don't own the software that you need to make it work.

With domain names, you don't own the name, you just purchase a limited time lease on the name. I guess it's the same as leasing a house, and then being told your references were not good enough, so you can't move in.

Perhaps someone with some legal knowledge could clarify.

 

[jberryhill]

Perhaps someone with some legal knowledge could clarify.

The terms of service at any registrar is not some kind of obscure mystery.

When you "buy a domain name", you are agreeing to those terms. So making analogies to retail stores, etc. is a pointless exercise.

During the rollout of new tlds each of the registries came up with its own system for pricing, availability, etc.. The registrars who wanted to carry the new tlds had to deal with custom coding their interfaces for each one, and not all of the registry protocol messages were well-documented.

There are a lot of things that can cause mistakes/errors.

A similar thing used to happen back in the early 2000's when the registrar business was separated from the registry business. When the .com registry interface wasn't entirely reliable, there were people who would "register" domain names at GoDaddy, who would submit those registrations as a batch job later in the day. The result was that some of the cached orders would be for domain names that were already registered, and there were those folks who would go on about crimes against humanity because "Godaddy told me I had successfully registered sex.com" or whatever.

Since there have been coordination problems in several new tld launches, there are some domainers who search for registrars that are accidentally returning premium or reserved names as "available" when they aren't. One registrar of which I am aware had a guy who had registered a boatload of domain names which he knew were actually registry premium names, and he used that registrar in particular because he knew that the registrar's system was inadvertently coming up with the wrong price. He even admitted that in an email among his various bizarre legal threats. He was intentionally gaming what he knew to be a bug, but somehow believed it gave him rights to those domain names.

Also a very legal question, hyper theoretically, if I purchased something from a shop at a certain price, then went home for twelve hours, then was told I didn't actually own that item as it was sold too cheap, where does this example sit in the Digital world and in ICANN's eyes.

When you walked into the shop, did you sign an agreement about what the shop may or may not do in the event of an error in the purchase process?

Here's what GoDaddy says:

https://www.godaddy.com/agreements/showdoc.aspx?pageid=REG_SA

"Your registration of any domain names shall be subject to suspension, cancellation or transfer pursuant to any ICANN adopted specification or policy, or pursuant to any GoDaddy procedure not inconsistent with an ICANN adopted specification or policy (a) to correct mistakes by GoDaddy or the registry operator in registering any domain name; or (b) for the resolution of disputes concerning any domain name."

Not only does GoDaddy's registration agreement say that, but EVERY gTLD registration agreement says that, because it is one of the terms which ICANN requires to be put into gTLD registration agreements.

So, that's what you agreed to when you registered the domain name - if they made a mistake, then they are allowed to correct that mistake. Asking about what happens in retail stores or in the "digital world" generally, has zero relevance to the terms and conditions of registering a domain name, which are stated in the registration agreement.

 

[Kuffy]

The solution is to take the problem public, and to allow market pressures to "persuade" the registrar to rectify the "theft" of a name.

Also, how later is later. If the registrar takes the name 4 or 5 years later, is he still rectifying a problem?

 

[MapleDots]

It is unfortunately no different than licence plates. In Canada if someone lodges a complaint and says a personalized license plate is inappropriate then you get a letter and they take it back. It is extraordinarily easy to take back non-tangible items like domain names and regardless of what you do there is going to be fine print protecting the registrar. You can fight it but like anything there are legal costs and you have to factor that in when deciding the value of the domain.

It sucks, I truly am with the OP on this, it should be ours when its bought and paid for but unfortunately it is not. Imagine all the poor folks if .network or .shop goes belly up. All will be lost and there is nothing the owner of the domain can do.

That is why it is wise to invest in the strongest extensions like .com and others with a good track record to assure your investment stays sound. If you invest heavily into some of the new extensions then you are open to a higher risk.

 

[Kuffy]

They are being a bit silly, because I'm going to try to unload my non-.com names. The only one I might keep is FU2.net

 

[MapleDots]

They are being a bit silly, because I'm going to try to unload my non-.com names. The only one I might keep is FU2.net

Where R U from Kuffy?

I own a lot of .ca's and in Canada I do well with them. I only have .com's and .ca's

I think the country codes are a pretty safe investment as well.

 

[Kate]

Also, how later is later. If the registrar takes the name 4 or 5 years later, is he still rectifying a problem?

Yup. There have been names repossessed after more than a year. An end user could have developed and SEOed a website to lose everything at once, without recourse.