[Theforum] domain

[David Kaufman]

Marlene Bruce <marlene at digitizethis.com> wrote:
>
> evolt.org is up for renewal. It's currently registered through
> Verisign. Should I just renew, or do we have a reason to move the
> domain elsewhere?

while i agree that *any* registrar would be better than Verisign, my
experience has been that "renewal time" is not the time to try to
transfer away from Verisign.  if you've begun receiving renewal
reminders from them, or are even within, say, three months of
expiration, they have a nasty habit, and reputation, of "accidentally"
losing and otherwise discouraging these types of "last minute" transfer
requests, since renewal time is when most folks decide to (try to)
leave.  and monopolies just *hate* watching their market share shrink...

so they may take the position that you do not have the "right" to
transfer away while you owe them money, and that you owe them that money
the *minute* they issue an invoice on your domain name, an invoice which
they issue on the earliest possible "reminder" date, usually 90 days
out.  this goes to their position that you don't own the name (or any
right to it that they don't grant you);  they act as if they own em all,
and merely license the right for you to use "your" domain name on
*their* terms, which is of course why the shared registry system was
born: their terms suck, and they reserve the right to change them to
suck more (in creative, new and interesting ways) at any time without
prior notice.

some of the more deceptive practices may have stopped since there have
been so many complaints to ICANN about them, but my advice would be, if
Verising has invoiced you, go ahead and pay it, and once you see that
you have a new expiration date in the WHOIS (takes a week or so to show
up sometimes) *then*, don't walk, run! to initiate the transfer to a new
registrar.  IMO it's worth the... uh what, $35?! just to avoid clashing
with the titan, and making a clean getaway.

personally i'd recommend a tucows/OpenSRS reseller.  there's probably
even an evolter or two who resell OpenSRS registrations...

-dave