ItsYourDomain Complaint, continued…
ItsYourDomain hijacked my domain name and forced me to pay a ransom to have the domain returned to my control.
When I sent a letter to ICANN, Ted Cucci, Executive VP Operations for ItsYourDomain.com, sent the following message:
Richard, I am sorry you are having so many problems. We have sent you 7 emails for your renewal that was due. When they are not responded to the name is deleted once it passes 5 days after expiration. Contrary to your belief we are not required to give any grace period. We do give a 5 day grace period past expiration and 30 days if it is requested by the customer. Since we pay the registry during that grace period and risk not getting the registry charge back we are very cautious. The redemption fee is something we pay to the registry and is not extortion. Most registrars charge much more than we do. The company you want to transfer to (GoDaddy) charges 99.00 for redemption. The company you purchased the domain from originally (domainstuffetc.com) resells our domain services and is bound by our terms of service. As far as not letting you into the domain name once you paid for the redemption has to do with the .ORG registry. Since .ORG was moved from the Verisign Registry to PIR their system is not up to par. This is your only valid complaint where ICANN maybe can help. The PIR system is not automated for redemptions like other registries. This is a manual process through email to get your domain name active again and takes several days to get a response from PIR and I think it should be fixed ASAP. I hope this clears up your question regarding what has happened to your name.
Since I disagreed with just about everything he said, I sent the following reply:
My complaint stands.
- You claim to have sent seven emails, yet I did not receive any emails about the expiration of zoho.org.
- Since I’ve complained to your company this week, you have sent two emails, both of which I have received.
- I obviously wanted to renew my domain name because I was forced to reluctantly pay the $100 in extortion money you demanded to do so, on top of the $14.95 renewal fee.
- Obviously if I had known that my domain name was about to expire I would have simply paid the $14.95 to do so, avoiding both your efforts at extortion and having my domain name disappear for an undetermined amount of time.
- My original email address is obviously still active, and I do not have spam filtering installed on my mail server.
- Given that you have a financial incentive NOT to have people renew on time, and consideration of facts #1 through #5, I wholeheartedly believe that you did NOT send the notice of expiration emails.
- I’m glad you recognize that “not letting you into the domain name once you paid for the redemption” is a “valid complaint” as it was YOUR on-line application that would not let me even view my domain’s contact information. When I logged into my account on your server [after the domain name was redeemed] it responded that I had “0″ domains.
To show good faith, to demonstrate your level of commitment to customer service, and to nullify my complaint, please refund the $100 immediately.
His reply to my response to his reply:
Richard, you are able to track the email logs with you internet service provider that does the email for you. They are not forged and they can be verified by your internet service provider. They show they were received by the server that provides your email. If you have any further questions about the email you should contact you internet service provider. As I mentioned before the fee charged for the redemption is a fee we are charged from the registry and is not refundable. Your account would have showed 0 domains in it until the .ORG registry updated the domain names. That is why you were not able to see them. We are all in business to make money or we would be out of business. Our level of commitment is there for every customer. The minimal monetary gain we achieve barely covers the time we spend to get the name back. It is a money maker for the registry which we are not.
Apparently he doesn’t believe in paragraphs. My reply to his response to my reply to his response to my original email (Are you lost yet?!) This email was also copied to Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, the law firm mentioned within.
Two questions and two answers:
Q. What incentive do I have to ignore a domain name expiration notice and let my domain expire?
A. Absolutely none.Q. What incentive does ItsYourDomain have to make sure a registrant does not receive a domain name expiration notice and to then silently delete the domain with five days?
A. income of $100.This new policy of yours that actively rapes your customers was not in effect when I transferred the domain to you in 2001. Have you notified the owners of the 438,035 domain names for which you were the sponsoring registrar at the end of 2003 about this monopolistic practice? Strange, I didn’t get that email either. Imagine the consequences if Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, or the law firm Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein were to have their domain silently deleted by you and their Internet service interrupted indefinitely. Worse still, what if an equally predatory pornographic website snatched up the domain, a quite common occurrence? Do you think any of these companies would accept your policies and behavior?
ICANN itself cites cases of registrants and registrars [like you] that have “demanded ransom for return of inadvertently deleted names” and registrars that are “already engaging in practices perceived to be predatory post-expiration of a domain name.” This is what you have done, and your company is wrong to extort or ransom money from innocent customers. No honest person or company could justify your behavior and policies. According to ICANN it is YOUR choice when to delete domains, it is YOUR choice what fees to charge, it is YOUR choice whether or not to honor a grace period.
ICANN says you are acting predatorily. ICANN says that you are charging an unjust ransom.
So do I. I expect a $100 refund.
A reply received from Ted in less than ten minutes [with my remarks in brackets]:
I am sorry you feel that way but you are way off base [LIE]. The charge is from the registry and we pay it so you do also [LIE]. The email we sent you are valid and work [LIE]. You do not have an argument weather to pay or not to pay [LIE]. Your other option was not to redeem the name and let it drop off [TRUTH]. Once that happened you would have been able to re-register it again [HALF-TRUTH]. I do not have a say on what the registry charges [TRUTH].
My last reply? Hopefully?
Fine.
You mentioned in your first email to me that you “give a 5-day grace period past expiration and 30 days if it is requested by the customer.”
I am your customer. My domain name registration expired on December 27, 2003. Today is January 6, 2004, ten days since the domain expired without my knowledge. I, the customer, am requesting a 30-day grace period past expiration as indicated unconditionally in your email.
Since, on your own terms, you have magnanimously extended me a 30-day grace period on my domain name expiration, and have thus inadvertently charged me a redemption fee of $100 to restore a domain name that is deleted outside of your grace period, I acknowledge that you deleted the domain name in error and will gladly accept your offer to have the $100 refunded.
Thank you!
ARRRRRGGH!
*sigh* I really hate áššhølëš…
