GoDaddy to manage over 850,000 domains registered at RegisterFly.
GoDaddy, the world’s largest registrar with over 20M domains under management, is picking up another 850,000 registrations. The company inked an agreement with ICANN and RegisterFly to take over management of the domains previously registered at RegisterFly. Ever since RegisterFly came under fire several months ago and lost its ICANN accreditation, domain owners have found it difficult to transfer domains to other registrars. Among the problems:
-Inability to unlock domains at RegisterFly
-Inability to get authorization codes to transfer domains from RegisterFly
-Registrants of domains with protected Whois records unable to prove ownership
This resolution is the best possible at this point in time for RegisterFly customers. GoDaddy will likely put a 60 day lock on domains before they can be transferred out for “security reasons”. However, this is much better than losing a domain altogether.
RegisterFly was known for its very low prices, but those prices came at a cost. RegisterFly customers who now have a large portfolio of domains at GoDaddy should consider the company’s Discount Domain Club, which offers .com domains for $6.71 per year. The cost for the club is $89.99 per year. However, the discounted pricing is $2.46 less than GoDaddy’s regular pricing. So if you have 37 domains or more it makes sense to sign up for the discount club.
Go Diddly says
Some complaints have arisen from former RegisterFly customers (whose domains were transferred from RegisterFly.com to Go Daddy in the May 29, 2007 agreement with ICANN) that Go Daddy is refusing to allow transfers out to other registrars. Go Daddy is citing ICANN rules which they claim allow them to deny transfers within the first 60 days of a previous transfer. Customers contend that this rule only applies to Holder-Authorized Transfers and note that the transfer from RegisterFly was involuntary.
Editor says
GoDaddy isn’t *required* to deny transfers for 60 days. This has long been a complaint. If you change your email address on a domain they’ll lock it for 60 days. It’s just another way they can prevent you from leaving for a competitor.