W Revenue dot Com

My company owns several high value, high traffic domains, but I’m not a domainer, so domain registrars and their policies and prices are about as fun and interesting to me as watching paint dry.  As long as the registrar does its job and leaves me alone, I’m happy.

What would happen, though, if the registrar decided to one day hijack and suspend one of my domains, for some arbitrary reason, under authority granted to itself by a little known fine-print policy in its registration agreement?  Could they do that?  Could traffic to my domain cease for days or weeks, destroying one of my businesses in the process and leaving me with little recourse without a protracted court battle?  Could my multi-million dollar domain be arbitrarily canceled and then registered by a domainer? The answer to all of the above: YES and it has happened again, and again, and again.

It’s important to take a close look at your domain registrar and make sure that you’re comfortable with how they do business, even if you’ve never had a problem with your registrar in the past.  It’s like data backups: you might not have had data loss in the past, but you backup anyway knowing that data loss can occur and would be catastrophic.  Failing to research and select the right registrar could be just as devastating.

While at a session at Pubcon in Vegas a couple weeks ago, someone in the audience mentioned that they have their domains at Godaddy, a bunch of people gasped, and the moderator expressed concerns over Godaddy’s policies and practices.  That got my attention — all of my domains were at Godaddy.  I chose them because they were (are) the largest registrar, and because I had many problems with NSI and register.com in the past.  I’ve never kept my ear to the ground about Godaddy because I just never cared: they’ve been fine so far.  But since the conference, I’ve come to learn that GoDaddy has a history of suspending people’s domains arbitrarily, and that there are a lot of complaints out there, which prompted me to reevaluate whether or not they were the best choice for our domains.

When it comes down to it, what was most important to me in evaluating registrars was 1) the general buzz out there, complaints and praise, and 2) the legalease fine-print of each registrar’s domain registration policies.  Ultimately, I need to know that my domains are safe from both hijacking by an outside party, and safe from service interruptions due to the registrar itself.

Top rated registrars, via a domainnamewire.com survey:

Registrars by size, 11/15/2008, registrarstats.com:

Were my domains safe at Godaddy?  Should I switch registrars?  To find out, I compared the fine print in the registration TOS agreements from several of the top registrars, Godaddy, Register.com, eNom, Networksolutions, 1&1, and Moniker. Here are the highlights from those agreements that you must read.  I’m not a lawyer.  The “translation” comments below are simply my business opinion and my own interpretation that I used in my decision making process, and my comments should not be construed as legal advice:

register.com: “You acknowledge and agree that Register.com may suspend, cancel, transfer or modify your use of the Services at any time, for any reason, in Register.com’s sole discretion and without notice to you. You also acknowledge and agree that Register.com shall not be liable to you or to any third party for any such modification, suspension or discontinuance of the Services.”

Translation: Nasty — Register.com can suspend your domain in their sole discretion for any reason at any time with no notice to you and they are not contractually liable to you or anyone in doing so.

godaddy.com: “You agree that, in addition to other events set forth in this Agreement, (i) Your ability to use any of the services provided by Go Daddy is subject to cancellation or suspension in the event there is an unresolved breach of this agreement and/or suspension or cancellation is required by any policy now in effect or adopted later by ICANN, and (ii) 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 Go Daddy procedure not inconsistent with an ICANN adopted specification or policy;”

“You agree that Your failure to comply completely with the terms and conditions of this agreement and any Go Daddy rule or policy may be considered by Go Daddy to be a material breach of this Agreement and that Go Daddy may provide You with notice of such breach either in writing or electronically (i.e. email). In the event You do not provide Go Daddy with material evidence that You have not breached Your obligations to Go Daddy within ten (10) business days, Go Daddy may terminate its relationship with You and take any remedial action available to Go Daddy under the applicable laws. ”

“Go Daddy’s failure to act upon or notify You of any event, which may constitute a breach, shall not relieve You from or excuse You of the fact that You have committed a breach.”

“You also agree that if Go Daddy is notified that a complaint has been filed with a governmental, administrative or judicial body, regarding a domain name registered by You using Go Daddy, that Go Daddy, in its sole discretion, may take whatever action Go Daddy deems necessary regarding further modification, assignment of and/or control of the domain name deemed necessary to comply with the actions or requirements of the governmental, administrative or judicial body until such time as the dispute is settled. In this event You agree to hold Go Daddy harmless for any action taken by Go Daddy.”

Translation: Godaddy can suspend or cancel your domain, in their sole discretion, if someone files a complaint against your domain and if Godaddy believes that the suspension or cancellation is necessary.  Godaddy can cancel or suspend your domain if they say you breached the agreement, even if you disagree, if you do not resolve that breach in 10 days.  If Godaddy fails to notify you of any breach, it’s not their fault and it doesn’t excuse you from the alleged breach.  Thus, you have 10 days to tell them that you didn’t breach, even though you may not have received any notice from them about that breach.  A breach could be as simple as not updating a phone number in the whois record, but it could really be anything they want.

enom.com: “We and your Primary Service Provider may reject your domain name registration application or elect to discontinue providing Service(s) to you for any reason within 30 days of a Service initiation or a Service renewal. Outside of this period, we and your Primary Service Provider may terminate or suspend the Service(s) at any time for cause, which, without limitation, includes registration of prohibited domain name(s), abuse of the Services, payment irregularities, serious allegations of illegal conduct, or if your use of the Services involves us in a violation of any Internet Service Provider’s (“ISP’s”) acceptable use policies, including the transmission of unsolicited bulk email.”

“You acknowledge that providing inaccurate information or failing to update information promptly will constitute a material breach of this Agreement and will be sufficient basis for suspension or termination of Services to you. You further agree that your failure to respond for over ten (10) calendar days to inquiries by us concerning the accuracy of account and WHOIS contact information shall constitute a material breach of this Agreement and will be sufficient basis for suspension or termination of Service(s) to you.”

Translation: eNom uses slightly less aggressive language than other registrars. They say that they can suspend your domain for cause (as opposed to any reason in its sole discretion).  That said, there are many “causes” defined, including if you send spam, and they will make the “cause” determination themselves and your domain could be suspended while you are disputing their claims for days, weeks, months.

networksolutions.com: “10.Termination.  b. By Us. We may terminate this Agreement or any part of the Network Solutions services at any time in the event you breach any obligation hereunder, fail to respond within ten (10) calendar days to an inquiry from us concerning the accuracy or completeness of the information referred to in Section 4 of this Agreement, if we determine in our sole discretion that you have violated the Network Solutions Acceptable Use Policy, which is located on our Web site at http://www.networksolutions.com/legal/aup.jsp and is incorporated herein and made part of this Agreement by reference, or upon thirty (30) days prior written notice if we terminate or significantly alter a product or service offering.”

“9. Revocation. You agree that we may suspend, cancel or transfer your services, including, but not limited to, domain name registration services in order to: (i) correct mistakes made by us, another registrar or the registry in registering your chosen domain name: (ii) to resolve a dispute under our domain name dispute policy: or (iii) to remedy an unauthorized change in the domain name account.”

“3. Network Solutions Right To Disclose Your Contact Information and Terminate the Private Registration Service. You acknowledge and agree that Network Solutions has the absolute right and power, as it deems necessary in its sole discretion, without providing notice and without any liability to you whatsoever, to (a) reveal to third parties the contact information provided by you to Network Solutions in connection with the account for the applicable domain name, (b) populate the public WHOIS database with the registrant’s name, primary postal address, e-mail address and/or telephone number as provided by you to Network Solutions, or (c) terminate your subscription to our Private Registration Service:

(i)                  if any third party claims that the domain name violates or infringes a third party’s trademark, trade name or other legal rights, whether or not such claim is valid;

(ii)                 (iii) if any third party threatens legal action against Network Solutions that is related in any way, directly or indirectly, to the domain name, or claims that you are using the domain name registration in a manner that violates any law, rule or regulation, or is otherwise illegal or violative of a third party’s legal rights.”

Translation: Network Solutions can suspend your domain if you breach their agreement (in their opinion), or if you don’t respond to them in 10 days.  They can also reveal your contact info and identity to anyone, if any 3^rd party makes a claim or threatens legal action (so much for private registration).

1&1: “2.2.7. 1&1 may suspend performance under or terminate this Agreement, cease transmission of data associated with your domain name, permanently remove Your Data from the 1&1 Equipment, and take any other actions it deems necessary, in its sole discretion, immediately and without notice, to comply with the UDRP or relevant Laws if it is informed or otherwise believes, in its sole discretion, that your domain name violates the intellectual property rights of any third party or is otherwise the subject of a dispute.”

Translation: This TOS is foul and to the point.  1&1 Can suspend your domain at its sole discretion if it believes that your domain name violates the rights of any 3^rd party or if it is the subject of a dispute.

Moniker: “The Registered Name Holder shall agree that its registration of the Registered Name shall be subject to suspension, cancellation, or transfer pursuant to any ICANN adopted specification or policy, or pursuant to any registrar or registry procedure not inconsistent with an ICANN adopted specification or policy, (1) to correct mistakes by Registrar or the Registry Operator in registering the name or (2) for the resolution of disputes concerning the Registered Name.”

“Furthermore, you agree that we may suspend, cancel or transfer your domain name registration services in order to: (i) correct mistakes made by us or the registry in registering your chosen domain name, or (ii) to resolve a dispute under our dispute policy. We will not refund any fees paid by you if we terminate your services.”

“We, in our sole discretion, reserve the right to refuse to register your chosen domain name or register you for other Moniker service(s), or to delete your domain name within the first thirty (30) calendar days from receipt of your payment for such services”

Translation: I was surprised to find that relative newcomer Moniker has the most business-friendly terms compared to the others.  Moniker can refuse to register your domain or delete it within 30 days after you register it.  But after that, they will only suspend or cancel your domain to correct mistakes made by them or by the registry when the domain was registered, or as a resolution to a domain dispute (i.e. if a recognized legal authority, such as an ICANN authorized arbitrator, orders them to transfer your domain to a 3^rd party after a dispute is not resolved in your favor). 

I have never used Moniker in the past, but after reading all of these agreements, their agreement appears to offer the least risk to business owners, in terms of the arbitrary power that a registrar has to suspend or cancel your domain and put you out of business, essentially whenever they feel like it.  The biggest risks to your domain are: a) the registrar doing something dumb or arbitrary to suspend your domain, b) someone else hijacking your domain, and c) the registrar going out of business.  After reading complaints at nodaddy.com and in forums like webmaster world (about how Godaddy canceled a domain in reaction to a mere complaint by Myspace), while also reading lots of praise about Moniker with few complaints and taking into account Moniker’s reasonably large market share as well, I decided to move our important domains to Moniker.  Most registrars appear to do a decent job at domain locking to prevent 3rd party hijacking, but you really have to take a close look at each registrar’s TOS and the stability and size of their overall market share to evaluate the risk to your prized domain, and I do not like the TOS of any of the above registrars except Moniker.