Don’t be held to Ransom over your UK Domain name

Over the years I’ve heard from many business owners of their bad experiences online. From being sold a website that never happens (or isn’t what they expected) to being scared into buying multiple domain names that they don’t need. Another common horror story is when you request your registration company transfers your domain to another provider and you are informed you must pay quite a few £s for it to be released. Sound familiar?

I recently had dealings with EMS Internet on behalf of a local small business. After receiving an invoice for renewal of the domain names and hosting he decided he wanted to move his website to another host and transfer his domain back to his own registration account. What should have been a painless and straightforward task turned into a very strained telephone conversation with an EMS Internet representative. She said because I had told her we were moving to another provider she was going to switch the website off immediately (even though no money was owed) and she also went on to say that the domain name would not be released without payment of their transfer fee (equivalent to their annual hosting charge of £99).

What if, instead of it being me at the other end of the phone it was the business owner being told he either pays up or his website is switched off? He wouldn’t know what else to do and will probably pay. In this instance a quick call to Nominet was all it took to get the domain name safely back in the posession of my client. I had already set up the mail boxes and website on the new server so it was simply a case of changing the nameservers. It really is that simple (if you know what you are doing of course!)

The message I want to get across here is that you CANNOT be held to ransom over your UK domain name. If you are being asked to pay an extortionate amount in order to release YOUR domain name then you need to get in touch with Nominet and they will walk you through it. It’s painless.

• When you register a UK domain you also get access to a Nominet domain admin area
• Your Nominet admin area gives you access to make the necessary changes so the domain can be transferred
• To change the tag direct with Nominet it costs £10+VAT
• Nominet has strict rules about charging for transfers (it should be reasonable)
• Nominet requires that it’s members do not hold clients to ransom for a domain name (and you can report a company for doing this)

On the other hand I would also advise any business to think long and hard about their reasons for switching their domain to another service provider. If the only purpose is to save a few pennies, even for a small static website it might not be worth the time and effort. Try to understand exactly what you are paying for and what it would cost at the alternative provider before making a switch.

I would also like to add that while a domain registrar is NOT charged by Nominet to carry out an IPS tag change it is reasonable to request a small fee to do this on your behalf (however long it may take them – minutes add up to hours and they are still a business afterall). What’s a reasonable charge? Well, Nominet will charge you £10+Vat, so if you are looking at anything higher than £20 I would personally consider that to be unreasonable. In addition, you should be prepared to allow the company reasonable time to make the change (they can’t be expected to do it immediately, if they do that’s good service!). I think it’s reasonable to expect them to make the change within 24 hours (take into account hours of operation too).

Keep in mind that Nominet requires it’s registrars to be reasonable when dealing with domain change requests from registrants. See below for more info.

• Registrant – You (ie the person who ‘owns’ the domain name

Change Registrar – advice from Nominet on how to go about changing your domain name registration provider

• Registrar – The company or organisation who ‘registers’ the name on your behalf.

Registrar Agreement – the contract between Nominet and the domain registration company

Feedback is Welcome!

• Are you a registrar who doesn’t charge for an IPS tag change or a registrar who charges more than £20 and considers it reasonable?
• Have you been bullied into paying a high fee for a domain name change or ended up having to change your website domain as a result of a registrar not playing fair?
• Have you had a pleasant experience when switching to a new registration provider?

I welcome any comments on this post from all sides. In particular it would be nice to know of nice registrars who have a ‘hassle free’ policy when it comes to releasing domains.