Transferring Digital Real Estate
March 12, 2007
I could talk forever about domain names, the digital real estate market of our society. I could question the legalities of squatting on a domain name, or I could vent my frustrations with kiting them. The latest thing to shake up the domain name marketplace is the new policy and procedures set forth by ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers).
In years past, I found it very simple to transfer a domain name from one registrar to another. It was always a simple task: the new registrar would email some security codes to the administrator on file for the domain name, which would in turn be entered into the new registrar’s system to either authorize or reject the transfer. I miss those times.
As of last year, times have changed, requiring an additional step at the mercy of good business practices from the losing registrar. The original rules method still applies, and the new registrar still mails out the security codes to the administrator of the domain. The new step requires the administrator to get an authorization code from the losing registrar.
Over the last month, I have had to transfer 3 domain names for clients. Each transfer has been a long story of playing waiting games and jumping through hoops, all put in motion by the losing registrars, in hopes that they won’t lose the domain name. From a business standpoint, registrars do not want to lose domain names because they are losing business and they are losing it to their competition which is the new gaining registrar.
I have heard horror stories, but to experience them myself and having to explain to a client who does not understand the wheels of the Internet, just make the task all the more difficult. Some registrars give up the authorization number with ease, others require you to have an extra set of logins, others make you download tons of legal forms which have to be notarized and mailed in, and some require a direct email to a non-published email address in hopes that you can get that last authorization number.
I would suspect I am not the first person to make complaints of the current system of how things are. I don’t know how the bureaucratic wheels of the ICANN work enough to know if things will ever be changed. Yet while I have been frustrated at these processes, I still have somehow managed to keep the clients involved and have had complete success in eventually authorizing the domain names to transfer. I feel like a small war has just been won every time another one makes it through.
I am no Bob Parsons, but I would like to talk more about domain names and the digital real estate market that is going on right now. I suppose I will share those thoughts in the near future.
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