It’s worse if you stop using the phrase ‘buy’ and instead use the term ‘rent’. A DNS provider could 10,000x your domain cost and there’s nothing you can do about it.
This actually happened to me, but fortunately I never actually used the domain. I registered tweed.dev intending to use robert.tweed.dev as a personal blog. It wasn't classed as a "premium" domain and the first year was £5 or something IIRC, which was half price compared to the normal renewal fee.
The next year they decided it was premium after all, and wanted to charge £492,000 for renewal. I still have a screenshot of that, although needless to say I don't own the domain anymore.
They operate the registry, but are not a registrar (bad choice of terminology) since they sold off that part of their business to Squarespace. Unclear to me who actually raised the price here since you can register a .dev domain with many registrars.
That's insane though, I assumed renewal prices were more or less locked in after you own a domain. Even the premium ones that go for thousands say they renew at the standard $12 or whatever.
Yea, but in this case the property is very special. I don't think anyone has a right to own a "name" for perpetuity, especially such a short one—that's just extending property rights to a nonsensical place.
Granted, I also have zero respect for people who think that trademarks, patents, and copyright are still working to promote rather than stifle the arts and sciences, so I can understand why my above sentiment might rankle.
Ok please stop posting as darby_nine. I’d like my turn with that identity. I think it fits with some objectionable conspiracy theories I’d like to promote.
Countries owning their ccTLDs seems basically correct to me. If you rent a `.tm` domain, you're doing business with the nation of Turkmenistan: might want to think about whether a TLD pun is worth taking on that relationship.
There are a bunch of different domain types all commingled together; non-premium gTLD domains, ccTLD domains, 3rd level domains, registry premium gTLD domains and, as added complexity, aftermarket domains which could be any of the previous listed types.
ICANN provides some protection for standard gTLD domains, but it's minimal. You're guaranteed identical pricing to all other standard domain registrants on the gTLD, so they can only raise your price by raising the price of everyone else at the same time. That hasn't stopped some registries from 10x price increases though. The only thing it does is ensure they can't single you out and massively hike your renewal fee.
However, that does not apply to registry premium gTLD domains. When you register a registry premium domain you waive those protections and the registries can technically do anything they want.
If you register a ccTLD domain, you're at the mercy of that country's registry. If you register a 3rd level domain you're at the mercy of the 2nd level domain owner and they're regulated by either ICANN or a country based registry.
It's actually somewhat complex when you get into it.
To be clear, that's because the country that represents that ccTLD has sovereignty over it. That's also why they can have arbitrary, unusual requirements on them.
