This practice is actively frowned upon by ICANN. There were some registrars that were doing this; when the domain was transfered the customer all of a sudden lost the years (they also were misreporting the whois expire date)
This is close to that; but I don't know what internic.ca does if the domain transfers away - do they attempt a refund? Are they tracking? Do they maintain accurate enough contact information to get the monies back to the registrant? This, in my mind, is fraud; the money you save by not paying the registry fee is insignificant compared to what lawsuits may come your way for fiddling with other people's money. Charles Daminato OpenSRS Product Manager Tucows Inc. - [EMAIL PROTECTED] > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of dnsadmin > Sent: February 5, 2002 4:41 PM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Keep renewal money but do not add it to the domain > > > > I recently become aware of a renewal method by Internic.ca for .CA > customers. > > 1. Customer buys a .CA domain for 2 years from Internic.ca > 2. Internic.ca registers the domain to expire in 1 year > 3. 11 months, 3 weeks pass > 4. Internic.ca renews the domain with CIRA for the additional year. > > If the customer in step 3 does a WHOIS and contacts Internic.ca about the > missing year, they get an email back saying that they shouldn't > worry - the > domain years are added once per year on the anniversary date. > > NOTES: > ====== > > 1. I don't know what happens if the customer tries to transfer away from > Internic.ca during the first year period. I assume they will get > their extra > domain year back, but what what if they don't? > > 2. Could this be a new way to retain customers? Would ICANN disapprove of > this method for .COM renewals? Basically you could charge your customers > that want more than 1 domain year ahead of time. > > You could then keep the money, and if they transfer to another registrar, > only the 1 domain year goes with the domain. > > Benefits would be: > ================== > > a) More money remains in your business account collecting interest > > b) Encourages customers to contact you to obtain a refund if they want to > transfer, thereby adding more red tape and making them say > "forget it, I'll > just stay with you -- it's not worth the hassle" > > c) Incase a customer does a credit card chargeback, the most you lose is 1 > domain year since the remaining funds are still in your account. You can > always refund or allow the credit card company do a charge back since the > cash has not been spent on domain years yet. >
