Registrars are beginning to offer new services to protect against domain name loss. Are they worth it? Well, they're worth something, but maybe not all the money being charged.
Yesterday, Domain Name Wire revealed that GoDaddy has filed for a patent for "Domain Name Hijack Protection." The basic idea of the service is that domain name transfer-out requests are automatically ignored. The customer gets a notice that the request was received and ignored. The user then has the option of turning off the service, and must supply photo ID in order to do it. Comments on the Domain Name Wire article say it's an intentionally cumbersome process, which certainly works out well for GoDaddy, but I'm not so sure I'd call this innovative.
This application may be related to GoDaddy's Protected Registration service, which similarly protects against casual transfers, a service they call Deadbolt Transfer Protection. In order to perform a transfer, more thorough verification procedures are required, probably involving genuine human beings.
GoDaddy also claims to protect the domain in case of billing problems, such as "credit card expiration, failed billing or outdated contact information." If your domain expires and cannot be renewed because the credit card expired or some other such reason the domain will be placed in "invalid, protected status" for up to one year. In other words, it will be taken off-line, but not made available for anyone else to register. If you've parked it you may not notice, but if you're using the domain you will, because it won't work anymore. At this point you can go back to GoDaddy and make things right. All this costs $24.99 a year, which is a lot of money compared to the base registration. You'd be much better off with a standard domain lock and just being responsible about your domains and reading the e-mail GoDaddy sends you.
And thanks to DomainNameNews for reporting that Moniker, a registrar aimed at higher-volume domain name owners, has launched their DomainMaxLock service.
DomainMaxLock, like GoDaddy's Deadbolt, makes you provide more stringent identification for transfers. According to the company you must:
- Provide a government I.D. number for verification of your identity.
- Set up custom security questions and answers, further safeguarding your domain assets.
- Provide special verification instructions and artifacts to ensure that your unique business or ownership interests are protected.
- When you request that your domains be unlocked, our security team works directly with you to verify all of the above off-line - further eliminating risks of doing business in an online world!
