Expiration>Redemption>(Auction?)>Registry>Backorde rs>to Public? WHOIS MISLEADING?

[quicksite]

Hi, Certified Newbie here, though have registered domains as an end user since 1995.

I've personally used, over the years, probably 20 different registrars for dotcoms, probably less, but it fees that many -- from networks solutions to valueweb to dotster to GoDaddy to 1and1 to website.in/answerable to hostmonster, snapnames, namejet, sedo, blah blah and many in between. It's always a mystery to me, no matter how many times people explain their process of expiration to redemption and when something goes back to registry for public availability to register a domain again.

Just when I thought I'd gotten it down at GoDaddy, there'd be some NEW "black box" variable that nobody could ever explain. Nobody has ever ever EVER been able to have been pinned down to give me exact unvarying methodology... but one long time veteran at GoDaddy did admit to me several years ago that registrar relationships and money play a role at ICANN regarding the sequencing of backorders and how they get fulfilled etc... and how even when something has been returned to registry, a GoDaddy can, under special considerations, grab it back, using "credits" or some mystery-meat term I can't remember.

Okay, that's my preamble.

Here's my reality.

I was going after this domain, via a backorder placed thru GoDaddy, under am assumption that the larger registrars do have some clout in that process -- if all other factors are equal in terms of when a backorder was placed. Sorry but i just have seen too much over the years to naively believe that some fairy godmother at ICANN ensures that the exact first backorder placed will FOR CERTAIN get the domain if it gets to that stage. Doesn't happen.

So, here is official ICANN registry for .coms: verisign; their WHOIS:
http://www.verisigninc.com/en_US/pro...is/index.xhtml
The domain is:
simplemobileusa.com

as of 6:13am pacific, I get this:

Domain Name: SIMPLEMOBILEUSA.COM
Registrar: REGISTER.CA INC.
Whois server: whois.register.ca
Referral URL: http://www.register.ca
Name Server: NS1.BRINKSTER.COM
Name Server: NS2.BRINKSTER.COM
Status: redemptionPeriod
Updated Date: 21-apr-2011
Creation Date: 12-mar-2010
Expiration Date: 12-mar-2011

>>> Last update of whois database: Fri, 22 Apr 2011 13:12:08 UTC <<<

The registrar of record, at least for this last year, was/is register.ca :
Here's their WHOIS:
https://register.ca/en/whois.php == again, simplemobileusa.com

As of 6:15am pacific friday april 22:

Whois Server Version 2.0

Domain names in the .com and .net domains can now be registered
with many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net
for detailed information.

Domain Name: SIMPLEMOBILEUSA.COM
Registrar: REGISTER.CA INC.
Whois Server: whois.register.ca
Referral URL: http://www.register.ca
Name Server: NS1.BRINKSTER.COM
Name Server: NS2.BRINKSTER.COM
Status: redemptionPeriod
Updated Date: 21-apr-2011
Creation Date: 12-mar-2010
Expiration Date: 12-mar-2011

>>> Last update of whois database: Fri, 22 Apr 2011 13:14:40 UTC <<<

I wasn't familiar with the Brinkster name servers, so i did THAT lookup at verisign: It gave me this:

Server Name: NS1.BRINKSTER.COM
IP Address: 65.182.99.55
Registrar: DOTSTER, INC.
Whois Server: whois.dotster.com
Referral URL: http://www.dotster.com

>>> Last update of whois database: Fri, 22 Apr 2011 13:10:36 UTC <<<

Is Brinkster affiliated with Dotster? Does this perhaps tell me that the new registrant -- who perhaps won the backorder of this domain, is a Dotster customer? I am clueless.

But according to godaddy, as of 5am pacific, today april 22, the domain got either renewed finally in the 11th hour of redemption, OR someone else's backorder got executed first -- which is fine, I can live with that, if that's what happened.
Their backorder tracking showed for that domain the expiration date was now April 2012 -- while the various WHOIS servers, including the official registrar handling the domain still said 2011.

Monitoring Status:		Active
Backorder Status:		Active
Type:		Public Backorder (Update Privacy)
Last Checked On:		4/21/2011 1:15 PM
Current Registrar:		REGISTER.CA INC.
Expires On:		12-mar-2012
Registry Status:		clientTransferProhibited clientUpdateProhibited
Nameservers:		RENEW.REGISTER.CA RENEWNOW.REGISTER.CA

GoDaddy tells me the feed they get to their backorder tracking is more accurate and more current than what populates on the WHOIS server info. And indeed those various WHOIS data pages will say "may take 48 hours to update new transactions" .
BUT WHY IS THAT THE CASE when the WHOIS server pages say

>>> Last update of whois database: Fri, 22 Apr 2011 13:10:36 UTC <<<

What exactly does that mean? Is it meaning-LESS?

Thanks for any decoding the pros can give me. I'm fine with not winning someting. What I can't stand is conflicting information. Why does this industry have to have such constant cloaking? vs. above board and transparent?

[katherine]

The domain SIMPLEMOBILEUSA.COM is still in redemption:

Domain Name: SIMPLEMOBILEUSA.COM
Registrar: REGISTER.CA INC.
Whois server: whois.register.ca
Referral URL: http://www.register.ca
Name Server: NS1.BRINKSTER.COM
Name Server: NS2.BRINKSTER.COM
Status: redemptionPeriod
Updated Date: 21-apr-2011
Creation Date: 12-mar-2010
Expiration Date: 12-mar-2011

http://www.verisigninc.com/en_US/pro...is/index.xhtml
You can trust this, this is the registry status.

Their backorder tracking showed for that domain the expiration date was now April 2012 -- while the various WHOIS servers, including the official registrar handling the domain still said 2011.

Many people are confused by this. When a domain expires, the registrar will usually renew it, in fact it's automatically renewed with the registry but the registrar has 45 days to cancel the renewal and get their fee back.
Why the registrars do that, it's because they are able to offer a grace period in case the customer forgot to renew in time or finally decides he/she wants to keep the domain. If they didn't do that, the domain would enter redemption status from day one, and it would be much more expensive to recover it.
The grace period depends from one registrar to another, in theory they have up to 45 days. At the end of that period, unless the domain is renewed it will enter redemption status and the expiry date at registry level will switch back one year. Because the provisional renewal was cancelled, the expiry date changed back from 2012 to 2011.

The important thing to understand is that the domain while in grace period is not expired technically, because it's been renewed at the registry. It's 'expired' from the point of view of the registrar as you have yet to pay the renewal fee in order to keep the domain.

Also keep in mind that in .com/.net the registrars maintain their own whois, the registry only has limited information like dates, name servers etc. To get registrant details you need to query the whois server of the sponsoring registrar.

This is the process for generic extensions such as .com/.net etc.
Country extensions follow different rules most of the time.

Hope my explanations make sense

In short, this domain is bound to drop and you should place a backorder with the major dropcatchers like Snapnames, Pool, Namejet & GoDaddy.
I assume the domain entered redemption today so you can add 30 days of redemption period + 5 days pending delete before the domain is finally deleted and available again.

[quicksite]

The domain SIMPLEMOBILEUSA.COM is still in redemption:

http://www.verisigninc.com/en_US/pro...is/index.xhtml
You can trust this, this is the registry status.



Hope my explanations make sense

katherine, thank you! They made perfect sense. And generally speaking, it turns out I *had* the proper understanding. It was the GoDaddy support person who threw me off because I could tell he didn't know s***. I want to just say, though, that though I am only using GoDaddy these days ONLY for this backorder, my having long ago shut down all domain and Hosting accounts several years ago with GoDaddy, WildWestDomains and whatever their PrivacyProtect version was called, this I can say with confidence:

People can say what they will about Bob Parsons in the outback shooting animals point blank for his blog, and about their deceptive practices overall, but over many years, by and large some of the best technical support I have received in the domain transfer business has been from the GoDaddy bullpen call centers where GENERALLY they know their stuff. But, of course, I had to be calling in at 4am when probably the C-List team was on duty ... not to mention new people have always got to be broken in.

If I were in management I would have one sacrosanct rule: I would instruct my team "the moment you don't know something a customer asks you, you step up to the plate squarely and say without hesitation

"to be honest I don't know the answer; i'm going to put you on hold for a sec to get the answer, or if I can't get it immediately I'm going to transfer you to my supervisor if that's okay?".

And I would absolutely forbid bullshitting and fakin' it til you make it. Customers can read that a mile away and it can damage trust and goodwill in an instant, destroying years of brand reputation, all due to some smartass with an ego too large to say "I don't know". I would go so far as to say if I caught someone doing that, I would fire them on the spot, 1-strike rule, no second chnaces. And the reason being, it is EASY, way easy to simply summon help and get expertise or confirmation when you don;t know.

In this case, when GoDaddy guy said

"Yeah, sorry guy, you just missed it; the guy renewed it", I said, how can that be when the WHOIS information shows the expiration date as 2011?

He said "Well our domain backorder tracker has more up to the minute data and we see things before it hits the WHOIS servers"...

I said "That doesn't make sense. I have been registering domains since 1995 and I have never heard of such a thing. Maybe you;re right, but I am looking at the WHOIS info for the actual registrar for that domain: register.CA and it says 2011, so you;re trying to day your information is more accurate that their server is?

"Yes, we have special feeds that monitor every change in status"

"Uh hunh, and so who is the registrant right now?"

"The guy who had the domain,he got it back."

"No. Impossible."

"No. you see it in our control panel. It;s right there, the expiration says 2012, i'm sorry guy, but he got it in just under the wire, he probably paid a hefty redemotion fee but he got it back"... I said, no, the info of registrant doesn't match the former owners in any way shape or form, i have screen shot of what it was."

"Well then someone else got it. You're not the only one with a backorder you know. I mean we wish it it were you, but somebody else may have had a backorder in queue before you and it got released to them"

"I'm sorry, but I don't believe what you;re saying. With all due respect, I don;t think you know what you;re talking about, and you haven;t given me any certainty at all. I can accept if I did not get this domain, but I am not convinced that it has been released to the public. Again, where is the registrant information? It would HAVE to be there, where is it?"

"Like I said, we get information sometimes sooner that it populates on the WHOIS servers"

"If you say so, but I think you're bluffing and don;'t know and you and dug in too deeo that you won't retract it now and say you aren't sure"

.... I then asked him "What are the next name server messages in the sequence, such as "client delete prohibited"? I can't recall what they are but there is a whole progression of these kinds of escalations of statuses, like a domain getting locked, a transfer prohibited, and ulimately if not renewed it is returned to registry."

"It's different for every registrar"

"Right, that's fine, but by example, what is the escalation sequence for GoDaddy, can you tick them off for me -- what's the progression?"

"Well it;s like you said "Client delete prohibited and..."

"You don;t know, do you?"

"Well not off the tip of my tongue"

...... This is where I ended the call saying

"you should go learn it"

BTW, I found that code-list here at DOMAINTOOLS.com: http://whois.domaintools.com/domain-...atus-codes.php

Many people are confused by this. When a domain expires, the registrar will usually renew it, in fact it's automatically renewed with the registry but the registrar has 45 days to cancel the renewal and get their fee back.
Why the registrars do that, it's because they are able to offer a grace period in case the customer forgot to renew in time or finally decides he/she wants to keep the domain. If they didn't do that, the domain would enter redemption status from day one, and it would be much more expensive to recover it. The grace period depends from one registrar to another, in theory they have up to 45 days. At the end of that period, unless the domain is renewed it will enter redemption status and the expiry date at registry level will switch back one year. Because the provisional renewal was cancelled, the expiry date changed back from 2012 to 2011.

And that's exactly what happened. The next day (well, the day you replied to this), I get a status update from that supercool GoDaddy faster than lightning batphone feed:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From:
Date: Fri, Apr 22, 2011 at 2:34 PM
Subject: DomainAlert: SIMPLEMOBILEUSA.COM Change Notification
To: quicksite

This notification is generated automatically as a service to you because you subscribe to DomainAlert®. We have noted that the following changes occurred between 21-Apr-2011 and 22-Apr-2011: The domain expiration date has been changed: OLD: 12-Mar-2012 NEW: 12-Mar-2011 The domain name servers have been changed: OLD: RENEW.REGISTER.CA RENEWNOW.REGISTER.CA NEW: NS1.BRINKSTER.COM NS2.BRINKSTER.COM The domain status has been changed: OLD: clienttransferprohibited clientupdateprohibited NEW: redemptionperiod for the following name(s): SIMPLEMOBILEUSA.COM The above change is also displayed under the My Account heading in "Domain Monitoring/Backordering."

So okay fine, the guy clearly didnt know ****, and thank you katherine for making this thread such a "proof of concept" perfect illustration of the process, where I happened to capture this moment in time where it temporarily was showing as renewed to 2012. It *does* throw one off.

t's automatically renewed with the registry but the registrar has 45 days to cancel the renewal and get their fee back.

This is the part I am vaguely remembering from a senior veteran at GoDaddy years ago who, if I recall correctly, told me, fees don't even get charged, that there is in fact more or less a "credit line" per se with the larger registrars, so these are like when provisional charges get made to a credit card for $1 just authorizations.... And that for the very reason that they may in fact flow right back to the registry, with the registrar voiding that renewal, there's really just an accounting game that goes on, and that they aren't real true exchnages of money. I believe that. That's part of what I call the "black box" components of Domains returned to public Availability. So many layers of insider protections that I think go way above the call of fair trade practices -- even if I were on the other end of the shoe. I just think it's ethically wrong that you have "little people" at various registrars around the world all being sold product upsells like "backorders" (**In my case I knew what it was and it was exactlyt what I wanted) being given crapshoot odds at

"hey there's a chance you may get that fatcat's domain he was too lazy to keep track of -- and you'll get it for a fraction of the cost of hvaing to pay them a million bucks for it"

and the customer would ask "is there really a shot at it?" and then the obligatory "well there;s no guarantee and if you don't you can apply this backorder to another, but heck yeah!".

No. Heck no. The greater likelihood is -- (A) original registrant is given 101 chnages to get it back and more than likely WILL get it back if it's a valuabel domain. Maybe he was on a cruise to Bahamas, now he's back and checking his 1001 emails and 101 reminders. Boomp, one click, renewed, game over. Sorry little guy who was sold bill of goods to get backorder ... or (B) if at GoDaddy, sure as hell is going to go to AUCTION first and little mr. Backorder is way behind that line, so, sorry , you weren't even npotified of that process, were you?... or (C) no one wants it at auction and it goes back to registry and it sets off the backorder queue: No way in hell it works legitimately as FIRST IN and timestamped gets it. No way. That's why, for good reason, you suggest wisely, use

major dropcatchers like Snapnames, Pool, Namejet & Godaddy.

I'm making a mountain out of a molehill as far as most here would feel, I am certain: but I just fundamentallly despise that. I just don't see why there should be the equivalence of bribery involved. What else would you call it? "Wholesale Relationship Leverage"? That's a much nicer term, but nonetheless, any single factor at all that bumps some timestamped backorder out of its legitimate place in the queue, that's just fundamentally wrong and unethical. That's my take.

The important thing to understand is that the domain while in grace period is not expired technically, because it's been renewed at the registry. It's 'expired' from the point of view of the registrar as you have yet to pay the renewal fee in order to keep the domain.

Also keep in mind that in .com/.net the registrars maintain their own whois, the registry only has limited information like dates, name servers etc. To get registrant details you need to query the whois server of the sponsoring registrar.

Right, got it. That's why I went to Register.ca and clicked on their WHOIS link ( they dont follow the convention whois.name.com )

you should place a backorder with the major dropcatchers like Snapnames, Pool, Namejet & Godaddy.

Is your view that I should place a backorder with Snapnames, Pool, & Namejet now? Isn't it much too late? (if not, then I guess it proves my theory of collusion!

I assume the domain entered redemption today so you can add 30 days of redemption period + 5 days pending delete before the domain is finally deleted and available again.

Ahh! okay, finally -- This is what Goofus and Gallant at Go Daddy could not simply spell out for me, and part of what has been a mystery for me. I think I am going to use that great new service caller fiverr.com to commission someone to create a graphical illustration that just lays its out without any mystery at all. There are certain things where visual depiction works best. This is one of them. One graphically illustrated timeline would blow out the water 1000 words explaining if/then. One of you folks must already own a domain called "howrenewalswork.com" ... tht would be your centerpiece, with rollovers

Thanks again katherine. I should place a warning on my threads: MUST DRINK COFFEE BEFORE READING.