Registrars take the blame for forgetful customers.
When you screw up and don’t renew your domain name, just blame the registrar when you talk to the press.
I see that happen all the time. Here’s another example.
Liberal blog RIfuture.org let its domain name expire on February 24. As is standard practice, domain registrar eNom replaced the DNS for the domain and pointed it to a parked page.
But you wouldn’t blame the owner of the domain if you read this article titled “Secretive Washington company snatches RIFuture.org”:
…International records show the rifuture.org domain name was taken over around 11:30 a.m. Friday by eNom Inc., a Bellevue-based registration service and subsidiary of Demand Media, the infamous content farm that’s one of the major reasons Google is being forced to make large-scale changes to its search engine.
The records say eNom’s ownership of rifuture.org is good until February 2012.
Brian Hull, who bought Rhode Island’s Future in mid-2009, told me Wednesday he’s working on regaining control of the site’s domain name from eNom and is confident he will succeed, although he doesn’t know how long it will take.
“It will come back,†Hull said. “There’s just some issues I need to try and work out with it.â€
“Some issues” means Hull needs to pay his bill. Which isn’t mentioned anywhere in the article.
It’s also inaccurate that eNom now owns the domain through February 2012. The domain is actually in “Auto Renew Period”, which means the .org registry tacked a year onto the expiration date, not eNom.
Another political blog states:
It’s going on 5 days (or so) since RIFuture.org was “taken over” by one of those ISP vultures.
Sigh.
Now, that’s not to say that eNom won’t eventually take this domain and keep it in its portfolio. But don’t blame eNom right now — blame the guy who forgot to renew his domain name.
eNom isn’t the only domain registrar to take attacks like this. The same thing happened when backup service CrashPlan.com forgot to renew its domain at Go Daddy. The company tweeted that Go Daddy “mistakenly removed our root nameserver entryâ€, “inappropriately took over our DNSâ€, and did a DNS “hijackâ€.
This is an inevitable consequence of monetizing domains during the EGP, squeeze a few pennies out, antagonize your customers, why not?
Some registrars make it very obvious that the reason they are looking at the page is because THE DOMAIN EXPIRED (actually, I can only think of one right now, mine)
http://taoist.net
Yes, it’s the registrant’s fault for letting the domain lapse. Yes, the registrar gets a bad rap via ignorance and fine media reporting.
But let’s face it, throwing up a PPC page with a tiny link somewhere “domain expired”, is almost certainly going to give the wrong impression.
Mark – it is interesting that there’s no notice on this particular parked page. I’ve seen them before on enom pages, so I don’t know why there’s not one on this.
That’s funny. I am from RI, and I am familiar with that blog website, which is a cesspool of progressive –AKA socialist –beliefs and organizing.
The state of RI has been ruled by progressive Democrats for 70 years and is run like a corrupt clubhouse. It is a FAILED state in more ways than can be imagined.
Personally, I hope the domain is never returned. A great service was performed by shutting down that web site!
These are just my personal opinions.
Holy Crap Hal! How are you? (Blast from past)
The first link you posted isn’t correct, this is the right link:
http://blogs.wpri.com/2011/03/02/secretive-washington-company-snatches-rifuture-org/
Thanks Larry, fixed
Love it. 🙂
Andrew, yeah, usually there is a notice somewhere. Unless this domain has been down so long it went all the way through EGP and this has now been harvested/mined/direct transferred already?
If this is the case it’s pretty well game over unless the new owner wants to be magnanimous about it.
Mark, it just expired about a week ago.
In advertising, since the 60s, whenever anything goes wrong, typo, prepress, design, it’s the printers fault.
With eNom’s experience and battle scars, I am sure they waited until it was book legal. With eNom’s ruthlessness, I am sure they foreclosed immediately thereafter.
Hiya Mark! Good to see you again!!
¡Pobrecito!
A lesson I learned from an 80s cartoon:
“When someone makes a mistake, they usually blame others. Especially those who can’t defend themselves.”
In fairness, though, the author at that site updated his article when others (including you) chimed in.