Who are registrars?
In this example, registrars are like the long distance phone companies. They are companies who are authorised to register domain names like Suite101.com or frenzmail.net to any individual or business. You are charged annually for your names, and can often pay a number of years up front so that you're not receiving invoices each year. Each registrar essentially does this same core thing; however, they are each trying to attract business like phone companies do... offering additional services, good/better support, cheaper prices, and well-built websites that have tools to let you easily control your domain name portfolio. Domain name registration is a hot and growing business, and while it's not surprising that everybody is competing for business, it's surprising that it has come to "slamming" techniques like we used to see with long distance phone companies.
What does domain slamming look like?
I recently got an email from "Earthlink Biz <domainrenewal@corp.earthlink.net>" with the subject line of "DOMAIN EXPIRATION WARNING: for Aswas.com." The email then goes on to tell me that my domain name will expire soon if not renewed; that IS true in that aswas.com will expire on 19 August 2001 if I don't pay for it by then or within the appropriate grace period. Earthlink's email to me goes on to say, "It takes less than 5 minutes to renew your domain online, so click here to do it now." The link is to a special page on Register.com. If I don't click that link, I might continue reading the email, which tells me that Earthlink is offering me a special price on my domain name, three years for $60, and that this special rate only comes through Earthlink's special relationship with Register.com. Nowhere in the email does it mention that Register.com is NOT my current domain name registrar, and that "renewing" my domain through this process is actually a transfer of registrar. For example, in agreeing to the lower per-minute long distance, I just switched from Company A to Company B.
If I HAD clicked on the link provided in the email, I would be taken to a page showing me all of the domains with which I'm associated that "quality" for this special offer. Each name has a checkbox next to it that's already checked, and a button on the bottom "begin transfer." The page DOES say on it "registar transfer," but that's not explained. Most people would not realise that they would be leaving their current registrar and now using Register.com. Therefore, if they later logged into their domain management account at their old registrar, they might be surprised to find their names no longer there. They may not understand what just happened.
