GoDaddy is stealing our names at this moment. They said we have until the 28th to renew, but some of our names already got cancelled and is going up on their auction.

ICANN, DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS!!!!!

“If the transfer involves registrations of more than 50,000 names, Registry Operator will charge the gaining Registrar a one-time flat fee of US$ 50,000″

Hundreds of thousands of domain names transferred from Registerfly are currently hijacked by Godaddy and forced to be renewed under their terms and conditions in violation of ICANN rules and policies.

This is not a routine matter relating to a registrant requested and approved transfer from Registerfly to Godaddy which would be subject to ICANN’s Inter-Registrar Transfer Policy’s Holder-Authorized Transfers. Naturally the 60 day hold would apply to those instances.

However in the current case the registrants have not requested nor agreed to this automatic transfer, an agreement with Godaddy has not been established and Godaddy is merely acting as a “custodian” of the domain name as stated on its own site. Clearly ICANN’s Inter-Registrar Transfer Policy’s “Holder-Authorized Transfers” 60 day hold does not apply to the automatic transfers which are not Holder authorized.

A cursory review of policy clearly establishes that automatic transfers falls under Paragraph B. ICANN-Approved Transfers (which makes no mention of a 60 day hold) and not Paragraph A. Holder-Authorized Transfers (which provides of a 60 day hold after a registrant authorized transfer).

Paragraph A-3 further provides an example for exclusion of the 60 day hold where the transfer occurs pursuant to an agreement between the Registrars and/or a dispute resolution process. Such is the case here where the automatic transfer has occurred due to registrar/registry/ICANN agreements and without the specific agreement of the registrant.

See http://icann.org/transfers/policy-12jul04.htm

This matter currently effects some 100,000 expired domain names and over 200,000 more expiring in the coming months which have been wrongly subjected to a 60 day hold and effectively hijacked by Godaddy.

ICANN’s public statement regarding this matter could immediately resolve this matter.

This seems improper since the automatic transfer from Registerfly to Godaddy does not constitute a customary transfer (payment to Godaddy, acceptance of their TOS, extension of expiration date, an explicit and willful action by the registrant to use Godaddy, etc.) and the 60 day hold should not apply.

While the registry requirement for transferring out are met (lock status can be removed and the AuthCode obtained from Godaddy) Godaddy is unilaterally and automatically rejecting all transfer out requests. I maintain Godaddy does not have such authority – whether based on its agreements with ICANN (which has yet to be posted at ICANN’s website) or based on a user agreement (which has never been established with the registrant due to the ICANN sanctioned automatic transfers).

On its website Godaddy states: “ICANN named GoDaddy.com the new custodian of the .COM, .NET, .ORG, .INFO, .BIZ, and .NAME domain names that were previously registered at RegisterFly. ”

If Godaddy is the “custodian” of these transferred domain names it should not have the authority to place constraints on the domain names over and above that which existed while the domain names were at Registerfly. This includes the inability to place an additional 60 day prohibition on transferring out and imposing mandatory renewals on expiring domain names.

If Godaddy is allowed to forcefully place this 60 day hold not only will already expired registrations have to be renewed at Godaddy and no other registrar of registrant’s choice but also those registrations that will be expiring in the next 60 days will have to be renewed at Godaddy!

In effect Godaddy will not be the “custodian” of these domain names but rather the sole new registrar imposed for an additional year (under its own terms and conditions and its own fee structure) without any alternative for the current registrant.

One would hope ICANN’s agreement with Godaddy was not supposed to impose such a huge windfall for Godaddy by forcing a long term relationship by the Registerfly registrants with Godaddy.

According to Godaddy’s website “more than 850,000 domain names will have been moved.” Assuming 2/12 of these already expired during the past two months at Registerfly due to the acknowledged problems and 2/12 will expire in the next two months a total of 1/3 of the automatically transferred domain names (280,000) will be forced to be renewed at Godaddy for an additional year – without any such consent currently existing by the registrant. This constitutes a windfall of over $2,500,000 in sales for Godaddy simply for entering into the agreement with ICANN, and a sizable profit based on its $9.17 price. Adding insult to injury Godaddy will charge these domain names at its renewal fee of $9.17 instead of its transfer fee of $7.17.

If Godaddy is allowed to enforce this 60 day hold policy this arrangement would not by definition constitute a “custodial” and interim relationship with Godaddy but rather a forceful acceptance of a third party registrar with its own TOS (which we never agreed to) and an ICANN sanctioned unilateral and coerced acceptance of Godaddy as our registrar for one more year.

Registerfly registrants should be able to choose where to renew their registrations (past their TOS with Registerfly) and not be forced to renew with Godaddy and accept Godaddy’s TOS if they do not so desire.

The ICANN agreement with Godaddy may allow it to inherit the arrangement between the registrant and Registerfly but not to impose a new relationship with Godaddy in the future without the registrant’s consent.

Congrats to Icann for whatever part (which i am sure was considerable) they have played in this successfull outcome …

You appear to be living in a dodgy 80s movie of your own making.

Maybe Footloose or Dirty Dancing. “Nobody puts baby in the corner.” Unfortunately ICANN is forced to live at the more immediate edge of things, so we won’t be able to get up to any dancing on this one.

Kieren

I’m sure that it wouldn’t take long for the pros and cons of all the different approaches taken by registries to come out.

Kieren