How to get domain name back?

[antony]

QUOTE(Paddy @ Aug 30 2007, 03:57 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Where did you find the price, Antony? Just had a look at their web site and the price isn't listed anywhere.

Just type any domain into the box, and you will get the price.

QUOTE(Paddy @ Aug 30 2007, 03:57 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Seems they're operating out of Belgium and/or the Seychelles, and they've been busy boys lately, judging by the number of comments on blogs and forums.

I did not notice that. Thanks.

[Mayo]

I think that private registration is a must these days and worth every penny.  If you don't use private registration you can expect to receive a ton of spam at the e-mail address you provide when you register a domain.

[tacit]

QUOTE(Mayo @ Aug 30 2007, 05:43 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I think that private registration is a must these days and worth every penny.  If you don't use private registration you can expect to receive a ton of spam at the e-mail address you provide when you register a domain.

There is, however, one very, very serious problem to private domain registration.

ICANN, the organization that assigns and monitors domain name registrations, requires that every domain name "whois" have the correct and current contact information for the registered domain owner. Domains that don't can be canceled.

So when you get a "private" domain registration, technically speaking, you don't own the domain name. The proxy service that does the registration owns it. They act as a prxy on your behalf to register the name, but technically it belongs to them, not to you.

Normally, this is no big deal. If you want to move registrars or transfer the domain or whatever, then they'll do it without a fuss.

But every now and then, it explodes dramatically, as in the Registerfly debacle.

Registerfly is a former domain name registrar and Web host that recently imploded on itself, after the owners accused one another of embezzlement and fraud, and the company stopped registering domain names properly. ICANN revoked their registrar status. It's a huge mess--customers are suing Registerfly for fraud and breach of contract, the owners are suing each other, many customers who were hosting at Registerfly saw their sites go down, it's quite spectacular.

Anyway, hundreds of thousands of Registerfly customers started leaving Registerfly like rats streaming from a sinking ship, and moving their domain registration to other registrars. But Registerfly is refusing to transfer many domain names that were registered privately. The people who own them? Screwed. Most of them may never get their domains back...because Registerfly is the legal owner of the domains. When you register privately, you're not the legal owner; the proxy service or registrar is.

[Francine Eisner]

Tacit, that is quite a story. It reminds me of the situation that musicians sometimes find themselves in. There are all kinds of royalties they can collect in different venues and media for music that they've written and/or recorded. It's quite complicated. My Ex, Jeremy, was signed up with several companies to administer his royalties. I'm not certain, but I think it's possible that you can administer your own royalties, but apparently few people do this.

Some of the companies who administer the royalties are corrupt, and while they may collect the royalties the musicians never get paid. One of the companies that he signed with to administer his mechanical royalties,  AMRA, was very honest, but a one-woman operation. The lady retired and the company was sold, and then sold a second time to a real wheeler-dealer based in California. This one turned out to be a complete crook. I discovered this because...you guessed it: Jeremy stopped receiving any checks, when in previous years his checks totaled anywhere from $3000 to $10,000.

The new owner didn't return my phone calls or respond to my letters asking that Jeremy be released from his agreement with the company. Although this agreement was with the previous owner, it was still binding, apparently. What I did manage to do was to contact all of the agencies (many of whom were overseas) which had been paying royalties to him over the previous 30 years, asking that they withhold payment to anyone, pending our investigation of the matter. This was a massive undertaking, and I was successful. I received many letters agreeing to withhold payment. So the company owner couldn't pilfer this money, and in the interim we didn't get it, either. I finally did get a really nasty letter from the her of course!

The trouble was that the original contract stated that the owner of the (company had the right to administer each property in perpetuity, until she was willing to give up that right. Hard to believe, but true. Eventually she did give up these rights, because she ran the company into the ground and just didn't want it anymore. Oh...forgot to mention that I contacted some other musicians who were signed with her. Some (the most famous) said they thought they were getting all of their royalties, and others said they definitely were not, but were too busy or not particularly disposed to do anything about it. Presumably she thought Jeremy was of the latter category (He was), and easy to prey upon.

I have no idea if Jeremy has been able to collect royalties on his tunes since then. We were going to sue, but we split up 5 years ago, so who knows what happened...?

Cheers,
Francine

[krissel]

Thanks tacit, I've pondered whether it was worth the extra money. Think I'll leave things as they are.

[Gregg]

QUOTE(jepinto @ Aug 15 2007, 09:59 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

If ther's typing mistakes, my apologies in advance, I've tried to see if the middle finger of my left hand can do without a knuckle today, so things are rough right now.

Do you have a photo clearly showing just that finger?

QUOTE

How hard will it be for her to get control of the name back?

Ask Ray Donovan. Maybe he figured it out.
Oh, maybe it wasn't his "good name" but his "reputation"?

[Mayo]

Verrry interesting Tacit... I have never considered the implications of the private registration services.

I have sent GoDaddy a detailed query that quotes your post verbatim along with some questions of my own... namely, how are my privately registered domains "insured against loss" as claimed in GoDaddy's private registration FAQ?

I'll get back to you when I receive a reply...

[Paddy]

All of Registerfly's registered domains have been transferred to GoDaddy. The private registrations have also been taken care of (or so it appears)

http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2007/05/...ly_domains.html

http://www.lockergnome.com/nexus/usrbingee...es-transferred/

http://help.godaddy.com/article.php?articl...mp;topic_id=534

Private registration for a site that is not an e-commerce site has advantages I'm not about to give up. (To have private registration for an e-commerce site is a good way to invite distrust, because that's what scammers often do too!)

Either way, it's obviously rather important to make sure that you register your domain with a reputable, well-established registrar who has been in business a good long time. Also, it's probably not a good idea to register your domain "free" through your hosting company as part of a hosting package unless they're on ICANN's list of accredited top level domain registrars, or you really don't care if you have problems down the road. There have been tales of woe from those who have done this and when they decide to move registrars/hosting, been given a real runaround. And typically, the registration alone, without the bundled hosting is substantially more than you'd pay through a registrar like GoDaddy.

[Mayo]

My apologies for not replying sooner... I received a reply from GoDaddy on 9/3, less than 24 hours after I queried them, but I've been a tad busy the past few days.

From GoDaddy:

If I buy a private domain name from Domains By Proxy, will I still be listed as its registrant?

First, Domains By Proxy is not a registrar so you cannot purchase a domain name directly from us. However, you can purchase a private domain registration through our affiliated registrars, all of which are ICANN-certified. Second, when you purchase a private domain name registration, Domains By Proxy becomes the registrant of the domain registration. Even though Domains By Proxy is the registrant, you retain the FULL BENEFITS OF DOMAIN REGISTRATION. This means that only you can:
Cancel, sell or transfer your domain registration.
Cancel our service so that registrant status reverts to you
Renew your domain registration upon expiration
Designate the name servers to which your domain points
Resolve claims arising out of a dispute involving your domain registration
The benefit of this arrangement is that the Whois directory publishes Domains By Proxy's name, postal address, and phone number instead of YOUR name, postal address, e-mail and phone number.

The statement seems clear enough to me. No doubt Tacit will find one or more possible legal loopholes and/or ambiguities in the above... Having read the entire GoDaddy Domains By Proxy agreement I have not found any language resembling the corporate legalese in the original post.  I am confident that a good attorney (and I have very, very good lawyers...) can use the information provided by GoDaddy to convince the court that the customer retains all rights to the domain name while Domains By Proxy is merely acting as an agent for the domain owner. I would be willing to bet that a summary judgment in favor of the customer would be the likely outcome of such a dispute.

I, for one, find the benefits of private registration too important to give up based on the fear of every possible (but not necessarily probable...) twist and turn of life.

[chriskleeman]

Hmm... got to wondering now about the WHOIS part of all this...

I just got a message from my Hosting Provider and now Registration Service Provider, IPowerWeb (bundled) about making sure that my domain and billing information was correct for ICANN

Looks to me that the Registrant and the Domain name are one and the same? This thread has left me shivering a bit about all this...  

What a mess this can turn into if you're not careful!

Chris K

[Paddy]

Chris, in your case the domain name is the same as your name and you're the registrant, so yeah, for you they're the same. ;)You don't have private registration (though GoDaddy's Whois lookup doesn't show all your info, Tucows does). Like Mayo, I find the advantages of private registration to outweigh the risks, but then at the moment I don't own a site that would make or break me if I somehow lost the domain. I've always used GoDaddy and DomainsByProxy for both my own domains and those of clients and haven't had any issues. Let's hope it stays that way - they're both pretty reputable companies from what I can see.

[tacit]

QUOTE(Mayo @ Sep 9 2007, 08:28 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I, for one, find the benefits of private registration too important to give up based on the fear of every possible (but not necessarily probable...) twist and turn of life.

What benefits do you see in private registration?

[Paddy]

QUOTE

What benefits do you see in private registration?

No spam. No junk mail. No admonitions to "renew" my registration from bogus companies! Umm...is that enough?

In the case of one domain I owned, shielding me as the owner was important. It was an information site about our town's politics and certain of our school funding opponents would have wasted no time in making a big deal out of the fact that I wasn't in fact a US citizen, if they'd known I was the sole owner. As it was, it belonged to the organization I helped start, not really to me. Over the years, I and others in the organization endured a number of nasty phone calls from wackos because of publications or notices we'd distributed - I had no desire to start getting them from the web site too.

I have absolutely NO desire to have my name, my email address, full home address, home phone number etc. in full view of anyone who does a "Whois" search on one of my domains. I work from home. I might feel differently if I had a business address for this, but I don't. Sorry.

[Mayo]

I do it for the same reasons as Paddy... when I did my first public registration some years back I went from zero spam to a flood of spam, all directed to my WhoIs registration e-mail address. And since I work out of my home, I am not inclined to have my home address listed on WhoIs. I'm not the paranoid type, but it only takes one nut case with a grudge to ruin your entire day.

[tacit]

QUOTE(Paddy @ Sep 11 2007, 07:06 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

QUOTE

What benefits do you see in private registration?

No spam. No junk mail. No admonitions to "renew" my registration from bogus companies! Umm...is that enough?

In the case of one domain I owned, shielding me as the owner was important. It was an information site about our town's politics and certain of our school funding opponents would have wasted no time in making a big deal out of the fact that I wasn't in fact a US citizen, if they'd known I was the sole owner. As it was, it belonged to the organization I helped start, not really to me. Over the years, I and others in the organization endured a number of nasty phone calls from wackos because of publications or notices we'd distributed - I had no desire to start getting them from the web site too.

I have absolutely NO desire to have my name, my email address, full home address, home phone number etc. in full view of anyone who does a "Whois" search on one of my domains. I work from home. I might feel differently if I had a business address for this, but I don't. Sorry.

That makes sense, especially in light of the political issue.

I haven't seen any spam that I can definitively trace to my domain registrations; but then, my email address is featured on a very large number of Web sites, so a flood of spam is pretty much inevitable.