Aloha Randi, Re: I have never used a registrar that charged a fee for transferring away domains... Consider this article in Slashdot: saikou writes "There were previous reports of GoDaddy, one of the biggest domain name registrars, attacking Bittorrent sites with frivolous interpretation of their own Terms of Service (that story was resolved), and now similar events unfold with clients of one of Russian domain registrars Majordomo.ru -- GoDaddy has informed them that all 1399 client domains are now blocked (story in Russian) due to 'many of your domain names were listed in the Spamhaus.org blacklist or were resolving to a name server or IP address listed in the Spamhaus.org blacklist' with a demand of a neat '$199 non-refundable administration fee to the credit card on file for your account for each domain name you wish to reactivate' or $50 for each domain to be transferred out into another registrar." http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/06/17/1319233 We know that some registrars are engaged in this practice and that others are contemplating charging such fees:

From the registrars list (comment from Rob Hall) "But on the broader note, I wonder aloud at which point a Registrar can impose it's own contractual provisions that override policies like the transfer policy. It would not be hard for a Registrar to put into place a non-transfer provision that lasts lets say 180 days, or a year after a renewal or other domain event. Or how about we just start charging a $50 admin fee to handle the transfer away. This fee would become due the second the transfer was applied for, so it would be a case of money owing on the existing domain registration which would allow for the transfer to be denied. hmmm."

http://gnso.icann.org/mailing-lists/archives/registrars/msg04255.html This type of research project will take us out of the anecdotal arena (where we need to rely on third-party allegations that are prevalent on many webmaster forums) and into empirical research. We may be looking at the start of a trend or at a trend that might already be in full blossom or we might find that such fees are in reality somewhat rare. Whatever the case, the domain name registrant can only be helped by such an initiative that might ultimately lead to a policy recommendation along the lines of that which is already in place at auDA: "Neither the losing registrar nor the gaining registrar is permitted to charge a transfer fee." http://www.auda.org.au/pdf/auda-transfers-response.pdf --- RJGlass <jipshida@yahoo.com> wrote:

I have never used a registrar that charged a fee for transferring away domains. Nor would I use that registrar if i had a choice, even if their annual registration fees were cheaper. I would think something like this would fall into monopolistic practices by registrars. I find that the most irritating issues with registrars are 1) lack of any customer service - except Godaddy (I have been trying to contact a human from enom for 3 days), and 2) tranferring domains.

On one hand, the barriers to transferring domains between registrars enhances security, on the other hand there seems to be little standardization and consistency.

-RJGlass A@L

____________________

Domain name services http://www.Psyberdomain.com

Help the needy http://www.DDMF.org

Help yourself http://www.AmericaAtLarge.org -------------------------

----- Original Message ---- From: Wendy Seltzer <wendy@seltzer.com> To: Danny Younger <dannyyounger@yahoo.com>; At-Large Worldwide <alac@atlarge-lists.icann.org>; na-discuss@atlarge-lists.icann.org Sent: Wednesday, March 7, 2007 2:25:42 PM Subject: [NA-Discuss] Proposed research on registrar transfer-away fees

Thanks to Danny Younger for starting this conversation.

Danny has proposed that the ALAC initiate research on a specific, registrant-affecting question: What are the scope and magnitude of transfer-away fees among the various registrars? These fees, charged to domain-name registrants when they seek to leave one registrar for another, can lock registrants in to a registrar who no longer serves their needs (as has happened in droves with former Registerfly customers). High fees can also contravene the intent of the uniform transfers policy. We have seen little public information about these fees.

So, here is a focused research task: For each registrar, ask Is there a transfer-away fee for registrants to take their domain names to another registrar? If so, what is the fee? Is the transfer-away fee disclosed to the registrant at the time of registration? Where and how is such disclosure made? Is the fee subject to change?

After we decide whether these are the relevant questions, we should ask staff to contact all registrars for their responses, and/or review public information on the registrars' websites.

If you're interested in this research, please respond to this message with your thoughts.

--Wendy

-- Wendy Seltzer -- wendy@seltzer.org Visiting Assistant Professor of Law, Brooklyn Law School Fellow, Berkman Center for Internet & Society http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/seltzer.html http://www.chillingeffects.org/

_______________________________________________ NA-Discuss mailing list NA-Discuss@atlarge-lists.icann.org

http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/na-discuss_atlarge-lists.ica...

--- Draft MoU with ICANN: http://www.icannwiki.org/NA_RALO_MOU

Draft Operating Principles: http://www.icannwiki.org/NA_RALO_OP

____________________________________________________________________________________ Don't pick lemons. See all the new 2007 cars at Yahoo! Autos. http://autos.yahoo.com/new_cars.html