Domain Hosting Queries

justaq

This is a bit long winded, but hopefully someone will read it and give me an honest opinion!

The facts:
1) Last year I decided to transfer hosting of some domains from Host A to Host B.
2) I registered the transfers on Host B's website and paid for hosting for one year. Registration with Host B included providing a contact email address (call it "liveaddress"). I was informed by Host B that in order to complete the transfer, I needed to inform the Domain Registry by sending them a correspondence.
3) My Mistake 1: I sent the necessary correspondence, but made a mistake with the contact details and so the communication did not get through to Domain Registry. I was oblivious to my mistake and assumed all was well and that the domains were now registered.
4) A few months later, the Domain Registry, having not received my transfer notification for the domains, attempted to contact me at my registered email address, which was out of date (call it "deadaddress") (My Mistake 2: I should have kept my registered address up-to-date). When they received no response they waited the necessary period of time before they struck the domains off the register.
5) A month after being struck off, one of the domains (Domain1) was registered to a third party.
6) I first became aware that my domains had been deregistered this week, when I paid the renewal premiums to Host B. I have been told that there is no way of retrieving Domain1 since it now belongs to someone else.
7) Host B Mistake (IMO): Host B claim that they attempted to contact me at "deadaddress" last year to inform me that my domains were about to lapse, despite the fact that the only contact email address I registered with Host B was "liveaddress". They claim to have used "deadaddress" because it was the address registered with Domain Registry. Needless to say, had they used "liveaddress" to contact me, I would have been alerted to the situation in time to be able to remedy it. I would still own Domain1 and all would be well.

I fully accept that I made two mistakes (noted above) which contributed to Domain1 lapsing and being deregistered.

The Queries
My queries relate specifically to Host B's responsibilities, if any, in this case:

A) Was Host B right to only attempt to contact me at "deadaddress", even though I had registered "liveaddress" with them as my contact email? (in extended correspondence, Host B has repeatedly refused to accept that they should have contacted me at "liveaddress" - this is what has made me so irate :mad: )
If it is the case the Host B should have, but failed, to use "liveaddress" to contact me, is there any liability arising? You may assume that Domain1 is a valuable domain.

jhegarty

I don't think they obliged to inform you that a renewal is due .... could be wrong though...

tomED

This is an unfortunate situation and I feel for you. Have been there in the long long past and luckily the domains weren't that important.

I would lie the blame solely on your own shoulders, I personally wouldn't expect a host to chase me to get my details right, the fact that they TRIED to contact you at the dead address was a goodwill gesture and shouldn't be held liable for it IMO.

EDIT:
By the way, I'm sure some great host out there will say that "we would have done it", but that's just a value added service....

AARRRGH

Unfortunate situation, but it was your mess up that caused the problem.

I think your host were correct to use the e-mail associated with the domain - after all, that is the person associated with the domain. The person who looks after the website (liveaddress) could easily be someone else.

cgarvey

In fairness, you'll need to consult the T&C of Host B, and perhaps contact a solicitor. I'd imagine the situation is grey, at best.

Morally though, Host B should have noticed that the domain hadn't come through. However, most big hosts (Irish or not) don't have systems/processes in place to cover these "one-off" cases.

One question I would be asking though, is that if you paid a year's registration for the .ie domain transfers, then where is that money now? Or did Host B never charge you?

mneylon

I've no idea who you were dealing with it and frankly I don't care. For all I know it could have been us

From a host's perspective a single domain has no real value.

Most of us make very little on a single domain, so if people have to chase for up to date contact information it is actually costing money

Most domain transfers are automated and rely entirely on the email addresses that are in whois or held at the respective registry (there are some exceptions to this)

If the email address at the registry level / whois was out of date it is the registrant's responsibility to update it

justaq

Thanks for all the responses. I appreciate your candor. As I said, I fully appreciate that errors on my part caused the situation to arise in the first place.

But notwithstanding this, I still feel very let down by the company for not contacting me at the address I provided them with once they were made aware of a problem in relation to my domains. The thrust of my point is that when I register and pay for a service and provide contact details to the service provider, I expect to be contacted according to those details if there is an issue in relation to my account which requires my attention.

Some additional relevant points of information on this:
Host B claimed to have attempted to contacted me at "deadaddress" only after discussing my case with the Domain Registry this week. I spoke to the Domain Registry and they told me that they had divulged to Host B this week the fact that my contact address with them was dead. When I asked Host B to forward me a copy of the email allegedly sent to me the exact response was: "I can only confirm we did make an effort to contact you. This cannot be verified on your part as the email contacted is apparently out of use". Host B als informed me that they do not maintain records of emails over 6 months old (is this common practice?). In light of all this, I am suspicious as to whether Host B actually attampted to email me at all.

cgarvey: the host has said he will refund monies paid for services not rendered.

blacknight: "From a host's perspective a single domain has no real value" - Is your point that this happened because I am a small client? If so, does that make it acceptable to provide a sub-standard service. IMO the time/effort required to do this properly would have been significantly less onerous than the time/effort the host is currently expending in dealing with my complaint.
"Most of us make very little on a single domain, so if people have to chase for up to date contact information it is actually costing money" - Just to clarify, there was no requirement to chase me up for contact information - I registered my up-to-date details with Host B when I engaged them. Host B actually had to chase the Domain Registry to obtain my out-of-date address!

tomED

Sorry but I still see the only person in error in this was you.

You not only made a few fatal errors, but you also failed to notice that this domain was not renewed after being expired for what....? 90 days ??... before it's let out to the open market again (i'm guessing it's a .com)

You never once thought about checking if everything was ok?

Even if the host took the money, there is very little they could have done without your input. So again IMO, you are looking for someone to blame, when in fact, it was your fault.

mneylon

justaq wrote:

blacknight: "From a host's perspective a single domain has no real value" - Is your point that this happened because I am a small client? If so, does that make it acceptable to provide a sub-standard service. IMO the time/effort required to do this properly would have been significantly less onerous than the time/effort the host is currently expending in dealing with my complaint.

If a large registrar had to spend 5 minutes on each domain registration or transfer request the cost of a domain would be significantly higher than it is now. What I was trying to get at and may have come across as being callous about was that for most of the registrars and hosting companies most of the process is automated

justaq wrote:

"Most of us make very little on a single domain, so if people have to chase for up to date contact information it is actually costing money" - Just to clarify, there was no requirement to chase me up for contact information - I registered my up-to-date details with Host B when I engaged them. Host B actually had to chase the Domain Registry to obtain my out-of-date address!

The domain transfer system relies on the original contact info with the losing registrar, so it wouldn't matter what email address you supplied the new provider with if the one associated with the domain registration with the original registrar was no longer valid

Liam Byrne

dublindude wrote:

Unfortunate situation, but it was your mess up that caused the problem.

I think your host were correct to use the e-mail associated with the domain - after all, that is the person associated with the domain. The person who looks after the website (liveaddress) could easily be someone else.

I think this is probably the key point; if the host had emailed another address, there was the potential for you to hang them out to dry on a breach of security.

If they performed a goodwill gesture and emailed the registered email address, then they've already gone beyond what they are required to do.