Ethical Domain Name Registrar > gandi.net

[iteles]

Currently we have our domain names rented across 2 different platforms: iwantmyname and netfirms.

Price is no longer really a consideration in this arena because there are pennies in it either way between providers so I propose we look for a more ethical provider.

I've spent 10 minutes doing a quick search and this is the only one that kind of appears more 'ethical': https://www.gandi.net/en/about-us

The services are good, the interface is clean and it looks positive.

Shall we try them out? Or does anyone know of any other ethical domain name providers?

[nelsonic]

@iteles my biggest concern with domain name registrars is privacy. We have used several other domain registrars in the past so we know all about the 'grey' practices. I hate it when registrars charge me extra per year for "privacy protection". 😠 So in addition to the fact that Gandi describe themselves as "ethical", I like that they are privacy-focussed:

"We value our customers' rights and privacy above all else, and defend these wherever and whenever possible."

I like the fact that they are based in the EU and are thus bound by GDPR. ✅

I vote for giving Gandi a try. I'd be happy to transfer over one of our renewing-soon domains and document the process. if we ever need any tech support @SimonLab can call Pierre in Paris. 🇫🇷😉

[iteles]

I saw that too!

Here are the transfer instructions: https://docs.gandi.net/en/domain_names/transfer/description.html

[nelsonic]

@iteles OK. I will take a look at my domains this week and attempt to transfer one of them. 👍

[iteles]

I'll do the same for one of dwyl's domains that's about to renew this week

[nelsonic]

@iteles did you setup the gandi account? (if not, do you have time to sit with me today and do it?) 💭

[iteles]

@nelsonic Not yet, feel free to go ahead and set it up if you want to do it asap ☺️

[nelsonic]

@iteles doing it now. 👍

[nelsonic]

Email verified: Account created. OTP is Google Authenticator App on my phone. 👍

@iteles on the basis that our next renewing domain is dwyl.io and iWantMyName charges £49/year!

I'm switching it over to Gandi which "only" charges €32/year (£27/year) https://www.gandi.net/en/domain/tld/io

LMK if that's "OK". 👍

[iteles]

Definitely ok. Would prefer to give the money to a more ethical provider anyway!

[nelsonic]

Steps to repertory: https://iwantmyname.com/dashboard/domains/edit/dwyl.io > unlock for transfer.

Of course it is ... 🙄

Order complete (paid using PayPal):

Waiting for transfer:

[iteles]

Happy with the Gandi interface so far?

[nelsonic]

@iteles it's "OK". The form resets if you attempt to change something during checkout ... 🙄 But otherwise it's "OK".

[nelsonic]

The final step in the transfer is approval in the iWantMyName UI:

Looks like they are processing the transfer:

[nelsonic]

Transfer confirmed:

Now to setup the necessary domain forwarding (dwyl.io > dwyl.com)

[nelsonic]

Gandi don't have auto-renewal enabled by default. So either you have to manually renew domains or they expire. 🤦 That is what happened to dwyl.io:

The domain expiration emails went to finance@dwyl.com and were not forwarded to me. 🤷‍♂️

So now I either have to pay their extortionate € 122.07 "restoration fee" ("Restorable until Jun 2, 2021"; next week), or the domain will expire and some domain squatter might get it and try to extort us even more:

They charge € 43.69 /year for a .io domain so this fee is just because it was allowed to expire.

This is incredibly frustrating. But if we don't pay the €122.07 in the next week the domain might be snapped by some random domain shark who might then try to charge us considerably more and it will take up even more of our time ...

@iteles do you have anything being sent to *@dwyl.io that is of any importance?

[Jbarget]

hey @nelsonic & @iteles! 👋🏽

Is the €122.07 only because its a "restoration fee" or is that the normal cost to renew the domain? Im asking since I like the idea of using Ghandi.net when i might need to in the future but price would definitely be a factor

[nelsonic]

Hi @Jbarget! 👋
from what I can see, the gouging is only if the domain is allowed to expire. 🤦 💸 But the fact that auto-renewal is not the default is super lame. All the other domain registrars we've used in the past auto-renew domains by default.

NameCheap is (as it's name implies) cheaper than Gandi: https://www.namecheap.com/domains

And I cannot find anything unethical on NameCheap other than a the fact that a few hackers have used their service ... but this is more due to them accepting BTC as payment ... 🤷

[nelsonic]

NameCheap is Hurting the Internet: https://petscams.com/news/namecheap-hurting-internet/ via: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/we-all-work-namecheap-richard-de-vere

🙄

[iteles]

@nelsonic This is incredibly sucky of them.

I’m going to email them to explain the situation and see what they say.

[nelsonic]

@iteles good luck. Let me know if you need anything. But given that time is a factor, we might have to just pay the "late fee". 💭

[iteles]

I've emailed them and appealed to their ethical nature but let's see 🤞

[iteles]

Pretty sure this happened again. What a fiasco this 'ethical' provider turned out to be. 🙄 Doesn't exactly help their/our case when 'ethical' is now synonymous with 'screwing over your customer'.