Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Would your Registrar sell your domain name ?

OH YES HE WOULD !

The role of a good Corporate Registrar is to secure your domain names and ensure it works properly.
Now, the security of your domain name does not only rely on your registrar’s tools: automated systems can lock domain names and Registrar’s internal procedures can provide a very good security.


Now: what happens when there is a problem ?

Let’s imagine a domain name is not on auto-renew status and the person in charge for this domain is not familiar with renewal procedures ?
What if renewal alerts are blocked in the SPAM filter ?
What if she is on holidays that day ?
What if she was fired recently ?
What if her position has changed and no one is in charge of domain names anymore ?
What if her email was closed ?
So many “what if” can endanger the security of your domain names.
Domain names do not only rely on systems, they also rely on people.
And what if…

…your registrar doesn’t care about your problems and wants to be paid that day?

Well, that famous day, your Registrar could just “sell” your domain name.
The domain name market is a very lucrative one. According to the number of letters your domain name has, if it is a generic term, how long it has been registered for, what traffic it generates, your domain name can reach a very high price if it is sold in live auctions.


Now: what live auctions have to do with the security of your domain name ?

Companies like Pool.com, Snapnames and many other have deals with Registrars: they have a preferred access to their automated systems to “grab” domain names when they expire so they can sell them during auctions: “These partners offer their expired domains through SnapNames before they are available anywhere else in the public market, giving SnapNames customers exclusive access to some of the highest value—and best priced—domain names on the market.”(Source: https://www.snapnames.com/about_snapnames.jsp)


What does it mean ?


Whatever the legal protection your brand or name has: it does not mean it is secured on Internet. Such partnerships can considerably endanger the security of your domain name because they maximize the risk to have your domain name automatically taken by someone else at its expiration if you forget to renew.

Would your Corporate Registrar sell your domain name ?
Check if he is a partner of these companies: Pool.comSnapnames (down the page) – List of partnerships

Searching for a real Corporate Registrar ? Have a chat with me.

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