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DomainZero To eHost Question

A

anastasia

New Member
I've been reading in other threads the problems with DomainZero, and I also have a few domains registered there. I wrote to eHost about one of them and got this reply, which is a standard reply I saw had previously been posted by someone else:

As outlined in our Terms of Service all domain names registered
through DomainZero.com must remain registered with Network Commerce for
one entire year. Upon reaching the expiration date, domain name owners
have the choice of either allowing the domain to expire or renew the
domain name with us for additional year at $24.95. Once you have
renewed your domain name for at least one year, the Registrar-Lock will
be removed from your account and you will be free to transfer the domain
name to another registrar, and Registrar-Lock will be removed from your
domain name.
Carl, eHost Support
A Division of Network Commerce, Inc.

Now, most sites say that you must agree to their terms and conditions when you sign up, and also that they can change their terms and conditions at any time. Which basically means that you agree to whatever the company wants to do, as long as you want their service, and you will have no recourse if they change the rules and you don't agree. Since I used to work for an internet company, I had to basically let our customers know the same thing, even though I think the concept really sucks. What is the use of having terms and conditions if the company can just make up the rules anyway?? The company I worked for *cough* NeoPets.com *cough* would tell us to put off writing back to someone until after they could change the terms and conditions to reflect something that should have been there in the first place. That's their standard procedure when the customer was right and the company had to cover their butt.

Someone mentioned something about ICANN and whether or not DomainZero, eHost or eNom (or whatever they will call themselves tomorrow) is breaking some rules by doing this to us now. Can anyone shed any light on this? I know it's a long shot, but I can't help but hope. I'm not familiar that familiar with anything regarding ICANN.

My biggest question would be this: for anyone who has let a domain with DomainZero expire, are they still holding onto it or really letting it go? I have three domains through them (I had 4, but managed to get it unlocked and moved, wish I had known they were going to relock them all again) and 3 of them I'd really like to keep. The one I emailed them about I am ready to let go, as I haven't done that much with it, and I registered a 'replacement' domain through Stargate to use from now on. I created an eNom account that is currently empty - will asking to have the remaining names moved to that account really work so they will be unlocked and available to be transferred?

Thanks in advance to anyone with any answers on this subject.
 
Originally posted by anastasia
I created an eNom account that is currently empty - will asking to have the remaining names moved to that account really work so they will be unlocked and available to be transferred?
Click to expand...

I don't know about the ICANN angle, though it might be worth pursuing.

I can tell you that I *doubt* eHost will push the domains to your enom account, and I'm unsure if eNom will, but that that is your only hope. If the domains mean that much to you, pay for it and then trasfer it. Things can happen, bad things, if you choose not to retain your ownership of it in hopes of renewing it after it drops. It is a risk you'll have to weigh. If it is not worth it, pay it and try not to think about it much :D
 
ICANN and legalities

I'm hoping to discuss this more with a lawyer for ICANN when I see him, but that won't be until mid-November. Too late for most of us. Even though I've managed to get my domain out of their greedy hands, I still want to get ICANN's take on this. DomainZero's treatment has been nothing short of extortion, something which should not rate being "an ICANN approved" registrar.

It took threats of legal action, but I got domainzero to unlock my domain. I was very relentless in this, and it took several e-mails, but they finally caved. I quickly moved the domain to another registrar.

They unlocked it "until the legal issues could be sorted out" by their lawyers. Well, it's not registered with them anymore, so they have nothing to sort out in my case anymore.

The legal issues I brought up were their changing of the original agreement, which said nothing about an extortion-rate of $24.95 for a single year. If I recall correctly, the original agreement was renew for a year for $9.95 (or get more junk mail, if that option still existed).

If anyone has a full copy of the original agreement, please post it somewhere and link to it here. It would help when I see the ICANN lawyer in November.

My feeling is, if they thought they were in the right, they would not have unlocked my domain.

DISCLAIMER: I do not recommend taking the route I took (threatening legal action) unless you have the ability to back it up, so don't think of this as an easy way to get unlocked unless you know what you're doing legally.




ADDED:
This old forum thread backs up my claim that the original offer was $9.95 (or $10 as rounded in the thread). I wasn't the only one stating this back then.

BTW, I stated back then I had a copy of the original agreement in print. I did, but it's lost in all the junk in my apartment. :( I'm looking for it, but anyone having a copy to show for us would make things easier. Going through all the junk at my place could take a decade or two. :biggrin2:
 
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I'm not certain as to the wording of the agreement. it may have said, "...renew the domain, which is *currently* $9.95..." - basically indicating that the price could change (to whatever the current rate is at the time of renewal). If they were smart, they'd have worded it this way, and I think they did.

It is easier for them to let you go however, than to fight for a $25 domain in court however, so it doesn't surprise me that they just let you transfer it. Good news for you, as it seems like they have a few things to iron out over there...
 
agreement

I'm not sure of the exact wording of the agreement either, but I do recall it said you could continue to receive the spam email messages you signed up for at the time you registered the domain when it came time to renew. I also recall a payment option - however stating that you could continue to receive emails INSTEAD of paying clearly indicates the customer has a choice when the time comes.

The question isn't what the terms were at the time the domain was registered, but rather how much they can change them later and still bind you to them. Those of us who signed up for these domains were told we could either pay or continue to receive emails from the companies you signed up with in order to continue beyond the first year. Obviously that didn't pan out financially for DomainZero, so now they simply take away that option and say if you want to keep it, you will pay for it. I know that realistically you can't expect something for nothing, but DomainZero sold my email address to about 20 companies in exchange for use of that domain name. Now instead of continuing this agreement, they tell me to fork over my money, while I will now also get unwanted email, since it is no longer part of the agreement.

Are we legally protected AT ALL from this type of action? I'm used to simply being screwed over in life, so this isn't the biggest deal in the world. But it seems they shouldn't be able to do this. If I owned a business and made bad business mistakes, I would suffer for it. Seems like they want the customer to suffer because they attempted a new way of doing business and it didn't work out the way they had hoped.

Anastasia
 
Re: agreement

Originally posted by anastasia
I'm not sure of the exact wording of the agreement either, but I do recall it said you could continue to receive the spam email messages you signed up for at the time you registered the domain when it came time to renew. I also recall a payment option - however stating that you could continue to receive emails INSTEAD of paying clearly indicates the customer has a choice when the time comes.
Click to expand...

You are missing the part of the agreement that said something to the effect of...

you could continue to receive the spam email messages you signed up for at the time you registered the domain when it came time to renew if the program was still running

-which it isn't. They didn't change that part, and I distinctly remember a small line within the agreement that contained something like that.

You might be able to get 'em on the unfair holding of your domain, not being able to transfer it (regardless of what their TOS said), as it relates to ICANN rules, but you won't be able to get them on that one.
 
Oh well, it's not that big of a deal to me. Guess you can't expect to get something from a business that technically no longer exists. All my domains with them were kind of 'secondary' domains. I had the .com versions and had used DomainZero to register the .net (or whatever) versions of the same name just to point at the site. I'll keep my eyes open and if any of them become available again, I'll register them through Stargate. If they just hold onto them, the domain is still tied up, so no one else can register it either. My main thing was keeping someone from taking the .net when I had a .com and both of us having sites that might get confused. I was trying to keep the domains I've chosen for my sites as 'mine' as possible. The irony that I chose DomainZero to try to do it!

You live, you learn.
 
Giggle

A second domain I got through DomainZero, which I got unlocked many moons ago by Enom and they never locked it back up (maybe because I changed nameservers?) "expires" today.

It's actually been renewed and registered with a registrar that has no affiliation with Enom at all, but for the past week DZ has been sending me "renew it or lose it" messages. They haven't figured out that they've got no control over it anymore.

Now that it's the expiration day (according to them), I'm looking forward to seeing if they say anything when they see the domain is no longer in their control.


For extra security, I asked my current registrar to lock the domain as well.
 
how did you do it? and where did you transfer it to? i dont want to waste $$ if the transfer fails.
 
2 situations

There were 2 domains in question I got from Domainzero. Each was handled differently.


Domain 1: I got unlocked several months back. Enom unlocked it. Since then, I had changed the Nameservers. It remained unlocked when Domainzero went through locking everyone who had been unlocked by Enom. My only guess is that the Nameserver change had something to do with it remaining unlocked.

However, I continued getting "renew it or lose it" mails from DZ, up until the day it expired (according to their list). At the beginning of this month, I had transferred it to another registrar, and continued to get these messages. The expiration date from DZ was 4 days ago. It doesn't really expire until Sep. of next year, it's on the new registrar, and I've heard nothing since the DZ expiration date.



Domain 2: I got it unlocked several months back, same time as Domain 1. However, I didn't change the nameservers, and it got locked back by DZ.

In order to get it unlocked, I had to threaten legal action, pulling my "I know an ICANN lawyer" card. They eventually unlocked it "until their legal advisors could sort it out". Haven't heard from them since.

I immediately moved it to a new registrar. I've had both domains locked at my own request on the new registrar (and I can unlock them at any time).




As for registrars: If you by chance manage to get your DZ domain unlocked, move it immediately to any registrar that is not affiliated with Enom. Any registrar will do, as long as they're not an Enom reseller.

If you end up on another Enom reseller, I'm not saying it could be problems, but it's possible. I'd suggest running like Hades from anything saying "Enom" on it. Just to be safe. That leaves you with hundreds of registrar options, including many of the cheaper ones.
 
ok great info thanks but...

remember when we have to choose what kind of domain name we want to register? business or personal? what did you chose?

i chose business and until now i can change my nameservers and all other info like administrative, billing, and technical. do you think i can transfer my domain name? i dont want to email them because they might "lock" my domain name.
 
If you aren't sure, you could always attempt a transfer. Hmmm, though what some are saying is that you are charged before and there isn't a refund on failed transfers, which I find unreasonable.

I'm not sure what to tell you, other than I'm nearly certain that all my domains are indeed under my control now, they were moved into *my* reseller account.

I think if you can accomplish this, then you are safe, even with enom.
 
Releasing Domains

I just wanted to add that I recently checked on the three domains I had let go and DomainZero did in fact release them, so they are free to be reregistered now by anyone and any registrar. They expired less than two weeks ago. I'm sure it's a name by name basis, and if they think that domain is good enough, they would hold onto it, but I guess mine just weren't valuable enough to them. (I thought for sure they would keep one or possibly two of them.)

So if anyone wants to chance it (I didn't think it was worth giving them the extra $$ just to reregister it somewhere else) it is possible you could just register again after they let it go. If they do let it go, they do so pretty quickly.

Good luck to anyone still trying to sort out their domains.
 
quick release by domainzero

Just wanted to echo anastasia's comment. I let the first one of my DZ domain expire and it was released in less than 2 weeks. It looks like DomainZero only registered the domains for one year instead of two like NameZero did. They obviously don't want to fork out any more money for another year (unless it's a really good domain), so they are releasing them.

I'm not going to renew any of my domains with DZ and take my chances registering them with another registrar when they are released.

Peace... :cool2:
 
Originally posted by Chicken

they were moved into *my* reseller account.

I think if you can accomplish this, then you are safe, even with enom.
Click to expand...

How much $$ per domain did you pay to enom ? I saw their reseller page said $29.95 .com. why not upgrade to eHost $24.95 which cheaper ?
 
It was substantially less than $30 and $25, I'll just say that...

They pulled a funny one however and somewhat flogged me a bit and I've been trying to fix all of that, though haven't had much time to think about it (been a bit busy).
 
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