Domain Registrars, Web Hosts, and other companies you shouldn’t trust
I have warned my readers about this multiple times.. an increasing number of domain name registrars are now more interested in you losing your domain names than keeping them.
Here is another interesting article, this time a press release from a company that runs the DomainSponsor parking program. They have launched a new product targeted to “hosting companies, registrars, registries, and ISPs.”
via Oversee.net “…Jothan Frakes will represent Oversee’s DomainSponsor in a HostingCon workshop, Turning Customer Abandonment and Loss Into a New Source of Revenue. The workshop is designed to communicate the value of a largely untapped revenue stream for hosting companies, registrars, registries, and ISPs. The panel will examine specifically how hosting companies can turn “under construction” and error pages into new revenue.”
Coming soon: your domain registrar and/or web host monetizing your traffic.
What’s the big deal?
Profit margins on domain names are very slim. After sending 3 emails to a customer notifying them about their domain about to expire and after encouraging customers to opt for auto-renew, what do you expect domain registrars to do?
We keep client expired domains for 30 days beyond the expiration date. After that, the domain is back on the market. During the 30 day window, the domain gets redirected to a landing page and yes that landing page has AdSense ads.
Comment by Proxy Server — July 20, 2007 @ 8:40 am
Read my other blog posts I linked to. Several registrars now have very strong conflicting interests as they are owned by domain development companies.
Another group is now joining the party, hosting companies. If I found out any of my web hosts were involved in this, I would shut down the account and move elsewhere.
Comment by Andrew — July 20, 2007 @ 12:15 pm
The “big deal” is that when I purchase a domain name from say go-daddy, they do this, then I should expect that while the domain is propagating that wont monetize the “underconstruction” thing. Its mine I paid for it. I dont see any reason why they think they have the right make money off of some I paid for.
If they want to do this, there should be a revenue sharing arrangement, that is paid to the rightful domain owner, until an index page is placed on it and it has propagated. That domain belongs to me once I have paid for it.
Comment by shane — July 23, 2007 @ 7:12 am