I quickly composed a letter and emailed it to that registrar expressing my thoughts. I also raised price of domain name once I had sent email. Because I was upset about matter I decided to raise selling price by a factor of ten. I never received a response from my email and assumed matter was closed.

Well, to make a long story short I received three more emails within next three weeks, each with attempts to get me to transfer my domain name to them. The emails included dubious documentation and said “You must agree to enter into a new Registration Agreement with us”. I ignored all attempts to sign away my domain name to other registrar.

The last four attempts to get me to surrender my domain name all occurred just after ICANN changed rules pertaining to domain names. That new ruling took affect November 12, 2004 making it easier (in my opinion) for someone to sneakily transfer a domain name. With current new rules it seems all you have to do is not respond to your registrar within five days of them sending you notice indicating your domain name is being transferred. If you happen to be on vacation, not respond to your email quickly, or overlook such email, you may find yourself short a domain name. If however, your domain name(s) is locked, then you shouldn’t have to worry about that problem. My impression is that many registrars are now locking domain names by default so they cannot be transferred automatically, but you should check yours to be sure.

All this fuss over a domain name I made up got me thinking about my rights to my domain name. I checked Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, signed by President Clinton, November 29, 1999. I’m no lawyer, but it does not look favorable for me, even though I made up a name I did not think anyone else had. I’ll let you reader check law and come to your own conclusion.

There has been no further action on that domain name and it has been two and a half months since last attempt to transfer it away from me. Is this end of that saga?

* I’ve left out first few characters for my protection. Contact me if you must know exact name.

For how long does a domain name belong to you? Generally when you register a domain name it is registered for a minimum of one year. However, you can register it for more years, as there is no hard and fast rule as such.

What is Domain Renewal? After one year you need to renew your domain name so that your website doesn’t get lost. Generally when your domain is about to expire your domain registrar will send you a reminder mail regarding domain renewal.

What happens when your domain name expires? When your domain name expires you can renew it within one month. If you don’t renew it in this period it goes into a redemption phase. It stays in this redemption phase for 15 to 30 days before it is then available for purchase again at a normal price. Getting a domain name out of redemption phase is like buying fifty domains as it can cost around $200!

How to find out owner of a domain name? To find out owner of a domain name, use WhoIs search tool on Internet .For E.g. Go to http://centralops.net/co/ and type domain name under Domain Dossier. It will show you name of registrant/domain’s owner/web host.

What is WhoIs record? WhoIS record is a domain name search engine/Internet program where users can enter an Internet entity (e.g. a domain, a network, some hosts) and it will give detailed information on domain registrar, owner of domain, and respective DNS records.