Sucky Domain Registrars

Like most internet geek types, I own a few domains—waldronfaulkner.com and a handful of others. And over the years I've worked with three different domain registrars, each one evil in their own way. Network Solutions was solid and trustworthy, but a giant pain in the ass to use.

I switched to Register.com for ease of use several years back, but they're expensive.

So I tried GoDaddy.com. Oh, GoDaddy, is there any any revenue stream you won't aggressively push?

Last April GoDaddy was in the news for some evil practices. The governing body for domain names, ICANN, took some action against them. In short, they were "locking down" domain names for 60 days after a user's contact information changed. The Catch 22 is that under ICANN rules, users must keep their contact information up to date, else risk forfeiture of their domains. GoDaddy's practice effectively forced some people into a situation where they'd have to either renew with GoDaddy or risk losing their valuable domains.

Even though I know GoDaddy was both ugly and evil, I still now prefer them to Register.com because the price gap is ridiculous. Register.com is still on this $35/year price point, whereas the rest of the industry is down in the sub-$10 range for individual domains. Register.com didn't get left behind in the rush to reduce prices industry-wide; instead of reducing their prices for users who were already accustomed to paying $35/year (idiots like me), they simply re-branded their service under new names, with different sites, and got competitive there, instead.

But what do I do with the domain that expires in 2 days? I don't want to leave it with Register.com because they're too expensive. I'd rather not transfer it to GoDaddy because they're ugly, shameless, and potentially evil. I considered switching to Google's registration service, but the sign-up process made it a little unclear what I was getting... it's associated with Google App Engine, and it wasn't clear whether I'd be able to just use the domain registration part without also transferring my existing sites to the App Engine infrastructure. They wanted to give me a new email address in the domain I was transferring... an email address I already have and use, in fact.

So I decided to transfer yet another domain to the potentially evil GoDaddy, from Register.com. I learned that Register.com has its own evil ways. In order for GoDaddy to complete the transfer, I have to provide an authorization code provided by Register.com. How do you get this code? You have to call them on the phone. After they do the standard verification-dance, they send you a different code to your email address. Then they ask you to repeat the code to them before they send you the real code you can use in GoDaddy's transfer process.

I've worked in a good number of consumer-focused Internet businesses. A good rule of thumb is that each step you put a user through, about half will drop-off. This is true both in the positive direction (don't make users go through a multi-stage sign-up process if you want to increase adoption) and the negative direction (if you make them call you on the phone before they cancel, fewer will cancel). Some of those consumer Internet businesses were also mature businesses, and I know what it is to push the revenue envelope. I know what it is to flirt with the line between increased revenue and dubious business practice, but Register.com crosses the line with this retarded, two-part authorization code thing. Lets review:

a) they email you a code
b) you repeat the code to them, ostensibly to prove that you have access to the email account.
c) they email you a different code

Huh? This verbal repetition of the code accomplishes nothing. They could have just sent me the real code. Access to the email address didn't need to be proven.

Now, I could see this process being implemented if someone just called them up and told them to send the code to some random email address, but this was the email address of record for the account.

So far, I've spent about an hour on this, working between the two sites, making phone calls, checking email etc., and I'm still not sure it's done.

Please, if you have experience with a domain registrar you actually like, please do let me know who they are... I'll transfer all my domains, maybe even all at once, instead of just when they get close to expiration.