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What happens when a domain registrar goes out of business?
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What happens when a domain registrar goes out of business?

Suppose if a registrar gets deaccredited by ICANN or goes out of happens because of any reason, what happens to the domains & how do people get to recover them? Do we have a process with less flaws when the whole wold has literally become a cyber village?

I remember when RegisterFly had gone out of business, they had transferred their portfolio to Godaddy but yet loads of people had lost their domains mainly because they had WHOIS protection enabled & due to mistakes of RegisterFly & Godaddy made during & after the transfer.

So I was wondering what would happen if a small or big registrar goes out of business today due to any reason?

Comments

  • Well, most likely you'll be notified beforehand that they are closing up shop and you'll be given a chance to transfer your domain elsewhere beforehand. If not, there's no reason why any registrar should give you a free domain (even though you bought it) because a fellow registrar went out of business.

    Please note this is just my thoughts on the matter and this isn't because of any previous experiences or knowledge in the area.

  • LeeLee Veteran
    edited February 2015

    Lets say abcdomains.com is a registrar for the ICANN registry, if they go out of business then ICANN has a process to arrange for all their domains to be moved to another registrar. From there you can see out the term at no extra cost then renew or move elsewhere.

    Or lets say you buy a domain from xyzhost.com who is simply reselling a domain through abcdomains.com. If xyzhost.com closes then you contact abcdomains as the registrar and they will take you through a process that will allow you to access the domain through their panel.

    However, people who have whois protection or are using fake info are at risk of loosing their domains. Processes were put in place to help prevent people loosing domains who had a private whois but it involves registrars having to escrow out the whois info to ensure it is known who the rightful owners are but I know from the past it does not always happen.

  • TrafficTraffic Member
    edited February 2015

    Have a look at what happened when EstDomains had... "problems."

  • LeeLee Veteran

    registerfly, the pain that one caused me was significant.

  • 123reg too. They lost there license due to bad customer service?

  • LeeLee Veteran

    @MSPNick said:
    123reg too. They lost there license due to bad customer service?

    It sorted them out though, they are a good enough service for domains.

  • @W1V_Lee said:
    It sorted them out though, they are a good enough service for domains.

    Yeah. Been a little while now.. 5-6 years since they lost it?

  • When a registrar closes ICANN move the domains to another ICANN registrar like: https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-2-2013-05-31-en

    But even Astutium Limited aren't reliable because they breached the ICANN policies: https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/correspondence/serad-to-golding-22nov13-en.pdf

  • @Licensecart said:
    When a registrar closes ICANN move the domains to another ICANN registrar like: https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-2-2013-05-31-en

    But even Astutium Limited aren't reliable because they breached the ICANN policies: https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/correspondence/serad-to-golding-22nov13-en.pdf

    Wow. That's some news to me that is!!

  • AbdussamadAbdussamad Member
    edited February 2015

    said: So I was wondering what would happen if a small or big registrar goes out of business today due to any reason?

    ICANN steps in and moves the domains to another registrar. The registerfly incident was pretty bad but ICANN learnt its lessons from that. Since then they've handled this sort of situation very gracefully.

    Just so you know it's a once in a blue moon that a registrar goes out of business. Over here on LET we see lots of hosts come and go but registrar's are not like that. They are financially much stronger and it's a very rare thing for them to go bust.

  • @MSPNick said:
    123reg too.

    Don't even get me started on those guys.

  • You can register domains with the domain registry sometimes. tonic, isnic,..

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