Private Whois Changes

April 21, 2010 by Paul

Hi folks. Name.com always strives to offer the lowest price on all our products and up until today we've been able to offer Private Whois for free for a long time. These types of posts are never fun, and no one enjoys raising prices, but sometimes it becomes necessary so we can continue to offer these great services.

While some registrars charge as much as eight or nine dollars per domain for this service, our new promotional price, starting today, is only $1.99 per domain annually. This means we are still offering some of the best pricing for this service anywhere. We realize that changes like this can impact our customer's plans and budgets, so we've taken some proactive steps that we feel will help to curb the impact of this new change. Those actions are:

All domains that currently have Private Whois already turned on will continue to receive it for free.
The new pricing will begin today and will only apply to domains that don't already have Private Whois enabled and/or new domain registrations.
We are running a promotional price of just $1.99/domain per year, which is one of the lowest prices available.
We've created a promo code called "FREEWHOIS" that will discount the current special pricing of $1.99 to $0.00, making this service free for the first year for orders using this promo code.

Beyond that, we will continue to offer promotions for discounted domains, so keep an eye on this blog and our Twitter and Facebook pages for promo codes.

We hope our customers understand this was a difficult decision for us to make, but that we've tried to soften the impact as much as possible. As always if you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to contact our support department or your account representative.

http://www.tiawood.com Tia Wood

That's not bad pricing at all. I thought it would be much higher.
- namedotcom
  
  Thanks Tia.
  - Tony
    
    This really sucks. I registered so many domains with Name.com just because they offered free privacy. Now I will have to go back to Godaddy as with the discount domain club it is much cheaper to register the domains and keep them private. It is not a big deal when you have only a few domains you can pay extra. But when you have 2000+ domains the privacy alone will cost over $4000 per year and it is not worth it... I was going to transfer so many domains to Name.com but now I will just keep them at Godaddy. I wish you guys didn't have to do it.
    - namedotcom
      
      Hi Tony,
      
      If you have existing domains with us that already have private whois enabled, then it will continue to be free for you on those domains. Plus we have the FREEWHOIS promo code for new registrations and we will continue to run promos for discounted and free private whois.
      - Sean
        
        I've had Whois Privacy on since I purchased the domain but this is what it shows:
        
        Whois Privacy yes expires: 2015-11-10
        
        so do you mind explaining? Also I think this Notice should be sent via email to ALL the customers.
        
        Thanks
      - http://manudixit.org Man
        
        This is bad, I had faith on name.com .. now I have started transfer my domains to Gotryweb.com.
        
        This is not the way you treat your customer
      - timestandstill
        
        That site has horrible English, you're really gonna trust it?
        
        I'm moving to New Dream (dreamhost) for domain regs because of this (its cheaper, with free whois privacy), but the site you linked to looks even worse.
      - namedotcom
        
        Hi Sean,
        
        Sorry for the delay, apparently my comment yesterday did not post. We initially set the expiration to a date in the future to avoid any potential issues while we made the changes. Now the expiration for private whois should be synced with the expiration for the domain.
        
        We agree we could have done a better job of informing people about this change. We make mistakes and we try to learn from them, thanks very much for your feedback.
      - http://southpark.com Eric Cartman
        
        very weak as if nobody at name.com knows about communication
        and it's just a oops mistake, very weak and I have a hard time believing this
        I would bet my money that it was not a mistake, but a conscious choice
        to play it this way, not to give a chance for people to set free whois for ever who still had some domains open or whatever.
        2010 and a big company acting as if they don't know about communication
        or try to play their cards like that, well I ain't buying no more domains
        at this place from 0,00 to 7,99
        Thanks for suggestions of other registrars to take my business
        and @name.com good luck pretending that nobody @ your place knows about communication
        WEAK
      - Branko
        
        I just logged into my account and *shocked*. People are you nuts? Doing something like this without warning customers is completely unprofessional. One big + why I used you as my favourite registrar gone... and now you behave just like NoDaddy... Time to check out some more competent registrar which still offer this service for free.
      - Tony
        
        Yea but that doesn't help. Before with the promotional codes the prices were as low as $7.99 with the free privacy.. Now it gonna be atleast $8.99 ( even with FREE WHOIS) and no discount on that. Godaddy costs cheaper if you have domain discount club $7.99 was cheaper than Godaddy but with $8.99 it will be approximately $1500 to $2000 for 2000 domains.. And it adds up.
      - Customer
        
        Nope, the FREEWHOIS code failed on me. Instead I had to pay $1.99 from my credit balance. Invoice ID: 2071326.
        
        Hope someone clears this up for me, please. It isn't about $1.99. I have more than 100 domains with name.com. So tell me if the code is working?
      - namedotcom
        
        Hi,
        
        Very sorry about that. The bug is fixed now, so the code should be working. If you have any other questions or concerns, please feel free to email me at lesley[at]name.com.
      - Peter
        
        If you use the code may be obtained free of charge, what sense is the change?
http://www.domainpromocodes.com Domainer

Thanks , You are still the best affordable price on whois.Not bad at all.
- namedotcom
  
  Thanks Domainer!
- moving on
  
  If you *are* a domainer, Fabulous.com is cheaper.
- climate
  
  Domainer, you should look the following comments, I think you are Spamer or a employee of Name.com, 98% customers saying that this is not fair policy .......
http://twitter.com/NirvanaOfTrance Quang H

That really sucks because I have several domains that I want to stay anonymous.

Can we get discounts if we buy like 10 whois protection for 10 domains?
- cd
  
  All domains that currently have Private Whois already turned on will continue to receive it for free.
  - vntask
    
    Thanks for this
  - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=831499501 Azhar Hafiz
    
    All domains that currently have Private Whois already turned on will continue to receive it for free
    
    is this free forever or until the next renew?
    - deny
      
      Till next renew.
King

i started transfered to Name.Com two days ago and now its status is pending transfer. do i need to pay for private whois?
- http://www.sbox.ws SBox
  
  Same question here, the domain should be complete in 2 days time.
  - namedotcom
    
    Hi SBox,
    
    Same as with King, you can use the FREEWHOIS promo to get your private whois for free.
    - http://www.sbox.ws SBox
      
      Hi namedotcom,
      How do I do that? My domain has just completed its transfer yesterday and its set at No Whois Privacy.
    - Ali Aamir
      
      Dear Name.Com leave the promo, and activate it on previous stage.
- namedotcom
  
  Hi King,
  
  You can use the FREEWHOIS promo code to get your private whois for free on this domain.
http://www.aliyev.us Millenium

VEry sad & bad news
Many Times I need private whois. Give Private whois back!
I know that there is economical crisis, but why Privacy get out?
I WANT FREE PRIVATE WHOIS!
http://www.englishclass.com.tw/toeic/ f1 ’91′bd’89’76’8d’82’95′aa’8b’5a’8d’49 f0

Interesting post. I have made a twitter post about this. Hope others find it as interesting as I did.
simplywile

I remember when Name.com used to be a good place to buy Domain Names
Now I'll just head back to Godaddy.

You probably didn't have any choice, but - as a customer - I'll have to act accordingly.
- nathanbrauer
  
  You've got to be kidding me.
  Even with the new $1.99 rate for whois privacy, GoDaddy still sucks thousands of times more than Name.com.
http://blog.tuantu.me/ Gordon

"All domains that currently have Private Whois already turned on will continue to receive it for free." -> Thank god!
coltter

lucky i have turned on all domains for private whois already,
anyway the price is really acceptable.
http://www.stopmydebt.com george

This is not good news at all. I have over a hundred domains that I was going to transfer to name.com but now I will have to reconsider. I understand that you may need to start charging for private whois, but it just doesn't make sense for me to spend extra on it when I can get it free elsewhere.
g3n3

This "new feature" did not work.. broken.
Just bought two domains with "private whois" and both stay open...
Bunch of old domains seems to be fine.
Wrote to support - no response.
- namedotcom
  
  Hi g3n3,
  
  What is your case number?
  - g3n3
    
    Hi
    Case #00183620: "private whois do not work"
    - namedotcom
      
      Ok, this bug is now fixed. If your whois data is still not private, you can go into your account and click disable and then enable, and then it should resolve correctly within a few minutes. Please let us know if you continue to have issues with this.
      - g3n3
        
        Thanks, after clicking disable then enable this turned on.
        But there is another bigger issue:
        Your company promoted that old domains will stay with free private whois.
        But now when I try to renew one of this old domain names it trying to charge me
        for "private whois" service.
        Actually it seems like all my domains now is "new" and I will need to purchase this service for them.
        I don't mind to spend some extra coins but why you promoted this as free?
        This is not acceptable.
      - g3n3
        
        Just to note.. on all my old domains was set as private whois enabled before.
Zeze

This is really sad in all aspects.

1) how can you make such a change on the minute and not alert your clients??? you put a blog post and expect people to read it?? and change that take immediate effect???

2) the argument that it is needed to keep low price is all BS! you could support free Whois as IT IS the trend. your costs are minimum. We are not in the 90's. you are plain and simply taking the piece of the cake while you still can. GoDaddy's way...

If i had doubts changing my domains to you, when i see that i still have free whois on places like NameCheap, Fabulous or Answerable then the doubts are now over.

Very lame move.
- namedotcom
  
  Hi Zeze,
  
  We agree, we could have announced this to our customers in a better way. We're not perfect and we make mistakes, but we try to learn from them. Many thanks for the feedback, next time we will be better about this sort of thing.
  - Nesoooo
    
    Next time, when is that, when you decide to raise price even more ... really bad decision ... from 0 to 7.99 come on gays, really ...
  - climate
    
    Thanks name.com, but you should change it as soon as possible, we are feeling disturbance,
- climate
  
  Thanks Zeze, you are saying right.
http://www.ijemuel.com Sean

I've had Whois Privacy on since I purchased the domain but this is what it shows:

Whois Privacy yes expires: 2015-11-10

so do you mind explaining? Also I think this Notice should be sent via email to ALL the customers. The price as many others have said is still good but it's something the the customers NEED to know.

Thanks
alex13

Now your don't have: 1. lowest prices on domains 2. free private whois. Nice :-/
And if this is a "new promotional price", looks like private whois will be more expensive in future.
Brian

"is this free forever or until the next renew?"

I also need to know the answer to this question...
- moving on
  
  Look in the control panel. They expire soon.
Habib

I am going to find other home for my all domains at name.com
http://ivienna.com Joe

At least make .com & .net registrations cheaper. At GoDaddy the formal registration price is about $11, but using coupon codes you can ALWAYS register names at $6.99 - and occasionally they even make coupons for $4 (and lower) registrations.
http://www.chandan.in chandan

not a bad price if you ask me.
d0main

This really blows. In the past 30 days I moved over 60 domains over to you because of the privacy being free AND was about to move another 160 domains. I've also reffered several friends.

Now with the privacy no longer being free I instead will be moving all my domains over to a registrar which doesn't charge for privacy.

I really think you should reconsider this decision if possible. I think you would get a lot more business if you could offer privacy for free or set the privacy at $1.99 PERMANENTLY. With free privacy you really can get tons of customers in through the door and then when they are in you can approach them with upsells like hosting, namesafe etc etc...

If you charge $8.99 per domain and $7.99 for privacy then you really are just making Name.com a dime a duzin registrar. Name.com we had a good run.

Ciao,
d0main
- Ziggy
  
  I couldnt have put it better!
- Chris Noel
  
  d0main,
  I'm almost in the exact same position. Moved over tons and tons of domains to Name and now this!
  
  Name byebye and hello Netfirms!
- Rudy Fernandez
  
  Preach it, brother!
Per

I also moved here because of free whois protection, guess I have to ship of somewhere else now. $2 is ok maybe, but as it's $8 (!!) next year it's not worth staying here. Just 20-30 new domains here will cost me about $200 extra per year for the whois protection! That's crazy...
- Brian
  
  is it really $8 next year?
  - http://www.free-gsm-unlock.com/ sadiki
    
    maybe next year will be 8.99 without any warn!!
Tirso Valdez

Very sad to read this post. Indeed I too think this will make Name.com a dime a duzin registrar.

I think it would be in their best interest to reconsider this decision.

Sad greetings from Amsterdam!
Tirso
PrivacyWhois

Just moved a few names over as I saw the free Private WHOIS as an item that set name.com apart from all the other registrars. Don;t get me wrong, I am still happy with name.com but must admit this really impacts "my" bottom line.

I understand that business is business but keep in mind that there are lots of competition out there and you need to set yourself apart from the others by offering expectional service as well as something the others do not have. Whois Privacy was one of those things.

By the way, all current clients should have had advance warning sent via email before this was implemented.

As a result of finding this blog post, I will take you up on your FREEWHOIS cart add-on for a domain that was just transerred to name.com today and may transfer other names over so that I can keep those names with Whois Privacy (forever I hope?)

Just my 2 cents.
Alex

The fact that I had to find out about this from a domaining forum just sucks big time !! I've been a customer with name.com for many years now, and the fact such a big change to the whois part of your service can just be changed so suddenly and without any prior warning is a pretty sneaky way of doing things. Was it so difficult to send an email out to existing clients ??

Looks like I will have to do what I did with all the domains I had at Domainsite - and that was to transfer them all over to Dynadot.
- nathanbrauer
  
  Alex, refer to my last comment here:
  http://blog.name.com/2010/04/private-whois-chan...
olexandr

I did not expect such behavior from name.com. Such things should be announced well in advance. As a loyal customer for a number of years, I feel deeply insulted. Shame on you, guys! Perhaps, I would reconsider moving to another more customer-friendly registrar.
- nathanbrauer
  
  This is ridiculous. If you already had domains with Name.com then you keep your free WHOIS for those domains. They're not upping the rates for those. If you buy new ones, however, you must pay for them (after one year). You don't expect your favorite grocery store to announce "well in advance" when they decide to up the prices of milk. Why would you expect any different from Name.com? I'm not very happy that the prices have gone up, but they went WAY BEYOND what a normal company would do by allowing current registrations w/ private whois enabled to remain free -- no other registrar would do that. Period.
  - deny
    
    "If you already had domains with Name.com then you keep your free WHOIS for those domains."
    
    It is not true statement. If come times to renew those domains then you will need to pay WHOIS for all domains that you already had with Name.com
custcare

You got a very BAD business strategics... before we all move out the domains. you have to make clear of this.

All domains that currently have Private Whois already turned on will continue to receive it for FREE permanently or only this year?
tkimball83

Welp, you have ~365 more days of me as a customer, then I'm gone.

Bad decision, very bad.
namegoesdownthetubes

This is awful, everyone should move away from name.com.
Spencer

Aside from Name.com's good reputation, I honestly signed up for the free private whois... now it seems they may lose both of those. I think you've really underestimated the lure of this feature for customers. And even though you've tried to soften the blow by making domains that already have free whois privacy continue to receive it (that was only fair), and created the promo code that gives your free private whiois for the first year (something that namecheap.com offers standard without coupon) you're still making what I think will be a costly decision. However, I also understand wholeheartedly that there is an economic recession going on and sometimes you have to do certain things to get by. It's also entirely possible that Name.com is acting like any other typical corporation trying to exact more money for themselves instead of thinking of their customers and giving them what they want and not what Name.com wants. In either scenario I think you've made the wrong move, when I signed up here I heard that Name.com really thrives from having a community of satisfied customers. I guess we'll have to see how it does without it.
Now I'm not coming out in total opposition, personally I still think you're a great registrar, and I'll give it to you, the price you've come out with for whois privacy is extremely reasonable. But if I register another domain I'll be looking for other options, whereas before it wouldn't have even been a consideration. Do the smart thing; give your customers what they want: reinstate free whois privacy. I'd recommend seeing about making more money or cutting costs elsewhere. But of course in the end it's up to you, but remember we can always still vote with our dollars.
http://dan.cx/ Daniel15

Why does it say "Whois Privacy $7.99 / year"? I hope it doesn't go up to $8 per year, otherwise I'm going to move all my domains.
- namedotcom
  
  HI Daniel15,
  
  We will continue to offer promo codes for discounted and free private whois, so if you keep an eye on our blog/Twitter/Facebook there's a good chance you won't ever have to pay full price for this feature. You can also renew the private whois on all of your current domains with the code FREEWHOIS to add on another free year.
http://www.openguru.com Raghu Nayak

Hi, I've a question here..

All domains that currently have Private Whois already turned on will continue to receive it for free.

How long is this? When I renew my existing domain private whois is free?
- namedotcom
  
  Hi Raghu,
  
  Anything coming up for renewal soon will have the private whois auto-renewed for free. If you have domains renewing later this year you can renew them right now for free with the code FREEWHOIS.
moving on out

Where are other folks moving? I did a bit of research, looks like nearlyfreespeech.net has the lowest price for registration + whois, though I could've missed something.

I checked Gandi, NameCheap, Register, PairNIC, DirectNIC, DynDNS, Moniker, Dotster, Arvixe. I ignored GoDaddy, they're too unreliable.
Hamid

Oh is Very Very Awful for my Name.com !
Ali Aamir

Dear Sir,
I respect your policy, but please change your views, because mostly registrar offering Free Who IS policy for their users, If you will not change it, your mostly customers will move.
I hope your management will think about it positively.
Best Regards,
http://debasish.info/ Deb

Ah i wasn't aware of this change, and did not know what is domainsite.com so emailed rudely to the support team. They explained me everything well [signed as Moe] and to top it off they gave me free private whois. Apologies for being a tough customer

I don't mind paying for private whois. Just that the change wasn't clear from the domain mgmt panel. I say put a temporary message up there so everyone knows & comes here. People like me who don't have too much domains & rarely login to the domain management panel will benefit.
olexandr

Is that difficult to send e-mail to everyone? It cost nothing. Even godaddy doing so...
LJ

Thanks guys. I transferred all of my domains to name.com just four months ago because my previous host introduced a charge like this. It doubles the registration price per year. And now you not only do the same, but charge MORE for the bloody service. I just found out when I tried to register a new name, and guess what? Your damn promo code doesn't even work. Gee thanks, etc., etc., and shove it. I'm officially looking for another registrar. I'm damn sick of the ever moving goalposts by domain registrars.
http://www.france.co.in france

hmm little expensive if we have big domain lists
Radiant

lol http://suckblog.info/2010/04/name-com-is-suckin...
Singh

GOT my self in same problem as u guys did.

had all my domains with name.com due to whois privacy and was about to bring all domain that belongs to my partners and customers to name.com luckly enough i saw it at the rite time i m going to look for another registaraar. who offer FREE WHOIS protection
Md

I registered a new domain on the 21st before this blog post was even made. I then paid for WhoIs privacy. There was no discount code at the time. Can I get my money back? It's only fair.

Thanks!
- namedotcom
  
  Hi Md,
  
  Please send an email to lesley[at]name.com with your account name and the domain name purchased and we'll make sure someone takes care of this immediately. Thanks.
epolyma

I understand the times are tough, and you as a business can do as you please. But really why lose the only thing that separates you from the competition?

Guess you guys are really starting to grow and simply don't care anymore.

I respect your decision, but will not be a customer going forward.
Md

I really do think it's still a good idea to send out a notice to customers about this change. You know what's funny is that I would not have even known about this change, if I didn't decide to recently purchase a domain from Name.com .

There are probably tons of customers that still don't know about this change. You should still send out an e-mail to everyone. Just for those customers that are still trusting that everything is still the same!
climate

this is not fare policy, change it as soon as possible, Its mean you are saying us that the whole coustomers move from name.com??

is it ............. ??
LJ

Just drawing attention to another of Name.com's wilfully misleading statements:

"All domains that currently have Private Whois already turned on will continue to receive it for free."

If you check your account, you'll see that you will only continue to receive it for free until your domain name's current expiry date. So if your domain is due for renewal next month, you will have to start paying for private whois from next month.

It also shows as costing $7.99 for me, not $1.99 as suggested in the blog entry. Hence my earlier comment about doubling the registration cost.

This is a bait and switch tactic really. Many of us were seduced by Name.com's free domain privacy because there ARE cheaper, well-known, domain name registrars out there, but they make-up their costs by charging for domain privacy and that's what makes them such a bad deal.

What Name.com are effectively doing here, after attracting you on a false promise of free privacy, is holding that assumed privacy to ransome. They are the highway robbers of the world wide web.

Sounds like a grand statement, but when you consider the sheer quantity of domains that some customers have, highway robbery is exactly what it is.

What's more, Name.com haven't even got the goodwill to let ALL customers know about this serious change via email, no doubt because they realise this will cause a sudden exodus. I only discovered upon registering a new domain yesterday. When you're playing around with people's privacy, you let them know personally when ANY changes occur that might impact upon that privacy. It's called having ethics. So from this point forward, it's safe to assume that Name.com have none.
Matt

I'm still being charge for WHOIS Privacy when trying to renew my domains. Well, so long name.com ! Its been a pleasant 3 years with you!
- namedotcom
  
  Hi Matt,
  
  If you use the code FREEWHOIS when you renew you should get private whois for free. If you are using the code and it is not working, please email me at lesley[at]name.com with your account name and the domains you renewed and we will investigate the issue immediately.
http://www.ijemuel.com Sean

"All domains that currently have Private Whois already turned on will continue to receive it for free."

and

"The new pricing will begin today and will only apply to domains that don't already have Private Whois enabled and/or new domain registrations"

So, for how long will the Free Private Whois last? By the way, I have a support ticket that hasn't been answered: Case #00184107

Thanks
- namedotcom
  
  Hi Sean,
  
  Thanks for the case number, we will respond right away.
TF

This is a bad business move for Name.com. I too had just finished moving my domains to your company in hopes of dealing with someone better and now it looks like I've made a grave mistake. Further more, such changes to customer accounts should have been announced before implementing them, and in a personal email. Your blog is hardly the place to find out I'm going to get screwed over. Your choice of methods for dealing with policy changes shows clearly that you'd rather not have all of your customers notice this all at once. I'm sure a mass exodus would put a dent in your business model for the month.

Anyway, as soon as my domains are allowed to be transfered, I'm out of here.
Felix

Great way of letting your customers know! A bloody blog post? Seriously?
I just read about this change over at DNW.com and probably wouldn't have noticed the change till the next registration.

Free privacy really was an USP of Name.com and one of the main reasons I chose to register my domains here.

Well, moving along....
Anonymous

Dear name.com

I'll state my view on this point, and I'll try to do this in a polite objective manner.
First, this is not how you let your valued customers know you make such dramatic changes; as a serious business, that possess well over one Valid contact detail of your customers, you should have let all your customers know about this by E-mail with confirmation and followups for acknowledgement (which is not too late to do now), but this way or the other, whats done is done - learn for the future.

Second, this act put many current and new customers in a problematic position, as you can read in most comments here. people took action and transferred their domains to you, simply because you offered free private whois they can trust.

I personally possess over 50 domains with you, and I find your business reliable, but offering $2 per private whois will cease to be economic for me.
I understand business very well & I understand this is an economic change which may be necessary for you to keep profitability, but you should offer your customers an alternative.
One thing you can do to sweeten this up, is offer "Per domain privacy" as you already did, but add a feature for "Per account privacy". As I buy many domains in a year timeline, I would like to have a $20-$25 yearly package that will cover my whole account (All future, one-by-one purchases), and not to pay so much for each.

Sadly, I will need to stop buying my domains here, even though you have been good to me. So maybe someone there need to think about the long term economic effects this thing will do, and not short term, because you will lose a-lot of business.

I hope someone will take action on this suggestion.

Thanks.
Mike

Wow, I have to agree with everyone here. I transferred a lot of domain names here, and recommended name.com to a number of people. All because of the free whois.

This is really a very bad decision for name.com. I would encourage you to reconsider this action before the reaction turns even worse than it apparently already has.
Jason

After reading all the comments on this blog page ... I seriously hope you reconsider repealing this new policy ... it will have a worse affect on your business than you can imagine. In case you haven't looked, there are cheaper registrars out there with free whois privacy. If you want to add revenue, try ADDING new services instead of taking away free ones you already provide. If you must charge for privacy services, apply it to new clients only.
Chris

well obviously I'm not happy about the fact that something that was once free is no longer free. I hope that you guys would re-consider making WHOIS free again as it is the main motivator of me (and I'm guessing most of your customers) migrating their domains over.
Mark

Very poor customer care. I can't see how Name.com expects people to trust them after this. I won't be moving any of my domains to them now, thank you!
John

You have got to be kidding me. I specifically spent the last year transfering all my domains from godaddy to name.com.

Now I have my last few pending transfer to you and I think I should cancel the transfer immediately. This is a move in the wrong direction on your part.

I am just learning about this for the first time on this website. This is very poor communication from an otherwise upstanding company with great customer service.

You guys are in the hosting business now. Your hosting is not up to par as you offer no 24/7 support like most hosting companies do.

You are now are now going to charge for a service that you have had free for years and no small sum it is when you count the numbers. This is not going to go over well.

THink about it like this. People ACCEPT your company because of what you have to offer. People JOIN youre company because they trust the name Name.com.

People will no longer ACCEPT your company let alone JOIN your company.

If I wanted to pay all these extra fees on all my domains, I would have stayed with GoDaddy.com.

Time to move them all back. You see Godaddy is constantly improving their services and providing more and more. You guys on the other hand never change a thing on your website. So since you got the first part down about charging customers an arm and a leg for anything and everything that was once free for years.

I am transfering my domains back to godaddy. I have seen a registrar go bankrupt before and I do not want to be part of it. It's a nightmare getting your assets out.
FREE PRIVACY WAS NAME.COM'S GREATEST FEATURE WHICH GAVE US THE BENEFIT OF PRIVACY FREE FOR ALL OUR DOMAINS. THIS WAS ESPECIALLY POULAR AMONGST DOMAINERS WHO HAVE HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF DOMAINS. DOMAINERS THAT EMBRACE COMPANIES SUCH AS NAME.COM ALWAYS BRING MASS APPEAL AND REALLY GIVES THE COMPANY A GOOD REPUTATION. AND ALL TOO OFTEN WHEN THE OVERALL OPINON IS THAT DOMAINERS DESPISE A COMPANY THAT COMPANY IS UNIVERSALLY KNOWN AND ALWAYS A LAST RESORT SUCH IS THE STORY WITH GODADDY.

YOU GET BIG AND LOSE YOUR HEART AND SENSE OF FAMILY WHICH GOT YOU WHERE YOU ARE IN THE FIRST PLACE. ONCE YOU'VE DEVELOPED A FOLLOWING YOU TAKE A VACUUM TO OUR WALLETS AND CLEAN US DRY.

The problem is domainers are never good for the plucking.

When you look at a domain portfolio of 412 domains and then calculate that you are going to have to pay $1.99 per domain to ensure your privacy that's $819.88/ A YEAR that was once a free feature that was the MAIN Benefit of transferring my domains to your company.

This was a given freebie from registrars popular amongst domainers.

I hate to be the first to say it, but NAME.COM will no longer be popular amongst domainers. They were everything to your company. You sponsor Chef Patrick.

To Paul:
It's certainly not something to be proud of as and to share with customers that:
"We make pricing changes everyday to domain registrations, web hosting plans, SSL certificates, etc. and we generally don't email our customers about them - but we realize the impact this has had on some of our customers and we realize we could have communicated better about the change."

COULDN'T WE HAVE PRIVACY BETA WHERE I DON'T GET AXED FOR A FEW YEARS. I just had to pay the damn government. I guess I will be adding Free Privacy to my list of taxes this next year.
ten

I've got to echo what everyone else has said so far. I chose your company because you offered this for free, and specifically transferred a dozen domain names over from all sorts of registrars. I guess I'll be going somewhere else.
bharatrawat

Edtech.in is professional Web Design Company of Delhi provides best services in website design like joomla, word press, J-query and more. E- Definer Technology (website design Company) is serving in web design field from last 15 years and has more than 325 clients.
GreenDogDude

So what you have just proved is that the the next time I go to login, you may have increased the price for new domains, or web hosting, or SSL renewal, or Backorder, etc. without letting me know in advance?

Yeah right.....

No communication = No Customers = No business
John Hughes

I will be moving all my remain domains that have not moved to you elsewhere, and as the dozen or so I have moved will move when they are up.

I had really liked you name.com, I had been recommending you...now I will find another registrar. One who preferably knows how to communicate at the very least with its customers. I was so happy to find this out the hard way.

Funny how this works, by the way, since you decided to demand $7.99 more a year, you are now, at least in my case, losing $7.99 a year.

Good Bye name.com,
Your Former Customer,
J Hughes.
Julien

Bad decision.

I was with name.com because of the free private whois.
james

the only reason why i use name.com is for the free privacy. i have about 800+ domains with name.com and continuously register an avg of one per day. i guess im gonna have to find another registrar. anyone know of any good ones?
deny

To be honest the biggest mistake (apart from news via blog) is increasing of price from 0$ to 2$

If you have increase the price to 1$ then reaction from the people should never be so angry as it is now. I do not own a lot domain and can survive but i can imagine how is this hard to someone who have for example 500 domains!

It is 1000$ extra for all domains and it is hard to accept.
Namecheap is not excellent alternative because they give for limited time free WhoisGuard.
But i agree they are still cheaper because if you buy in bulk then is cheaper then by name.com

Maybe it will be good idea for the the team behind name.com to give customer option to buy in bulk.
By namecheap for 5 domains 7.88$
By name.com for 5 domains 9.95$

Just my 2 cents.
http://www.liewcf.com/ LiewCF

sigh.. free private whois is the only reason I wanted to move my domains to you..
aprilmopisbad

That's really sucks! i'd like to say goodbye to name.com, i start moving out hundreds of domains from name.com to others. Honestly, you will regret this policy sooo bad after you realized that you've lost thousands of your loyal customers. You made a really bad pricing policy without any proper announcement to your loyal customers, name.com has lost it's value (free private whois) and soon you will see the bankruptcy as an exit way. Shame on you. RIP Name.com
James

I am a name.com customer and I (used to) recommend you guys to my friends.

The high management imbecile that made this decision should be fired. Obviously this decision was made by someone who is not in touch with 'Joe domain owner'.

The money you make from selling whois privacy will not be greater than the thousands of dollars you lose when clients leave you because of this decision en masse! You don't fix up this mess asap, I'm goooooone!

As stated in a previous comment, your free whois privacy was your unique selling proposition, what made you different, what made you my obvious choice of registrar. You take it away, and you're just another "me too" registrar.

111 angry comments can't be wrong! Goodbye name.com
http://jacksonleung.com Jackson

Name.com, speaking as a person who deals with the domain industry, and as business consultant. I hope your business branch knows what they're doing. You guys essentially took your niche and threw it out the door. You haven't even achieved market momentum yet. After the change you guys will have nothing that distinguishes yourself from your competitors. Not only that, you can expect everyone who has privacy enabled to switch companies causing an immediate and major revenue loss. You might make more in terms of marginal profits, but total profit might be severely impacted to the point where you guys will see a Net Loss instead of a Net Gain.

Good luck. I'm switching once my whois expires. Btw, GoDaddy's user interface sucks. I went from GoDaddy to Dynadot to Name.com, you guys can try Dynadot, I'm going to look for a registrar that can do 8.99 plus free whois next cycle.
john

I am not happy about this at all. I moved a ton of my domains over here from godaddy and several others because of the free whois. This is going to cost me big time. Guess I will be looking for another registar, and also getting rid of some of my inventory, as it doesn't make any sense anymore. Pathetic. All domains should be private unless you want them public. GREED, there is nothing more I can say. Greed rules the day. I sense name.com is going to be losing lots of business with this greedy move.
http://www.kelvinism.com Kelvin Nicholson

I actually migrated all my domains from GoDaddy because name.com had free privacy, although it was a tad more expensive to register domains. The person who made this decision really needs to be asked if they surveyed current customers, and how many would leave if such a policy was implemented.
Peter Harkins

For anyone else who is dismayed at the doubling in price, I've surveyed prices at other registrars and have comments open for more alternatives: http://push.cx/2010/domain-registration-survey
http://www.brentter.com brentter

This is a HUGE dissapointment. The fact that you guys had a very streamlined/clean interface combined with free privatewhois that didn't expire whenever you needed to renew domains were the MAJOR two selling points for name.com! It set you above namecheap, godaddy, etc.. When you're dealing with a whole lot of domains on a daily basis you want to be able to go from homepage->feature as quickly as possible without all the js scripts, images that have to load, etc... Even with your new redesign of the domain listing it's still cleaner than any of the other registrars. But now this?!? You're taking away the key factor to why i've been a very vocal supporter of name.com for as long as you've been in business! Just search on twitter/facebook/google if you don't believe me. What you'll find is conversation after conversation, mainly with strangers, trying to convince them to switch to name.com. It's not like I was seeking these people out either, it was all becuase they hold the same resentment that most folks do about the crap that 99% of domain registrars have on their websites/services. It was easy. You guys were the perfect answer to all their woes. Now you're just adding new features to the company. First blog hosting, what next... vps and dedicated servers? SEO optimization? Nascar sponsorships? This is just going to be eventually passed down to us in the form of higher rates to pay for the features or equally worse - a shitty UI that's overcrowded with stuff unrelated to what your original service is (domains).
Just my two cents.... but I think this is a bad move.... and it looks like i'm not alone by a long shot.
-brent
http://www.dlgen.com WallnerX

1and1 has .COM domains for FREE! for the first year only, hurry before it ends! They also have free Private WHOIS!
Alfred

It is really bad move imo. It is no point for me to recommend name.com any more. Will move out all domain soon.

Good bye name.com
20 Domains WIth You

Please explain this statement directly and clearly: "All domains that currently have Private Whois already turned on will continue to receive it for free."

"Continue to receive" would seem to imply that if you currently have domains, and you currently have private whois for free, that those domains will continue to have private whois for free ad infinitum. Is this true or not?

If this is not true, you need to clarify this to say "continue to receive... until your domain renewal is up."
- deny
  
  Yes they need to change statement because this is not true:
  ""All domains that currently have Private Whois already turned on will continue to receive it for free."
  
  I have renewed 3 domains a 5 days a have not received Private Whois for free.
Karl

Dear Sir/Madam,

I have been purchasing domains for quite some time via your company and was really disappointed to see when logging into my account today that you have decided to change your WhoIs Privacy policy without any warning and have now began to charge for this service.

Having many domains held within your system your new policy is obviously going to be very costly for me so I will of course have to now seriously consider moving all of my domains to one of the many companies that offer this vital service for free (and also stop purchasing any further domains via your company).

I have in the past referred many friends and colleagues to your website and services which I thought up until this point were top notch, so do feel really disappointed by what you have done especially since WhoIs Privacy is paramount with identity theft on the increase, and something which should certainly not have to be paid for.

Hopefully you will take this email seriously as I am sure by taking this route you will not increase your companies long term revenue as you may think, as many of your long standing customers will go elsewhere - and you will gain less new business because of this cause of action.

Hello,

I'd like to thank you for taking the time to contact us. As you have noted, we have recently made the very hard decision to start charging for private whois. We understand that change is tough, especially when a cost is involved, so we have tried to make this transition as easy as possible.

For the near future you are invited to use the our promotional code 'FREEWHOIS' when you renew your WHOIS privacy service. You can use this code to renew the service at anytime, and as many times as you wish. Your domain privacy service does not have to be tied to the domain's renewal date.

As you have mentioned in your email, our tools, our support, and our prices have been recognized as being some of the best in this highly competitive business. While it was a hard decision to make, we feel that our new pricing for this service is very reasonable and competitive with what other registrars are charging. By offering the FREEWHOIS promotional code we have done our best to make the impact of this change as minimal as possible to our customers.

Regards,
Sky
Name.com

As you can all see from the response there is no apology for changing their terms of service without any warning and they have not commented on the very real fact that we are all going to take our business elswhere !! What a great shame I really did think these guys were good... oh well... a couple of hours work will sure beat the $1000+ I would need to spend on the privatewhois by keeping my domains here !!!
- Do the math
  
  Karl, are you really sure you want to move your domains away from name.com? I just moved a domain to name.com to benefit from the current FREEWHOIS promo. Read and understand what name.com stated in their reply above:
  
  "You can use this code to renew the service at anytime, and as many times as you wish. Your domain privacy service does not have to be tied to the domain's renewal date."
  
  The domain I transferred expires in 2013 while its private whois at name.com expires many years later. Use the FREEWHOIS promo and get what no other registrar can guarantee you: free private whois years in advance!
http://english-domain.com John Armonk

Ya we can understand
jom

I just found that if I can only apply one coupon a time, which if I use whois coupon then I cannot use price discount coupon, to pull down the renewal fees to $8.20. Please consider to create a coupon for free whois + 8.20 renewal pricing. There is not much reason to continue to use name.com if without free whois and discount pricing consider there are many registrars offer .com renewal pricing at only $7.17, with ICANN fees included.
TVChatten

This is hurtful and I was about to register a domain with you guys today and JUST found out about this new whois privacy thing. If something had to go up in price I'd rather it be $1 or $2 more for the .com and all than for the free whois privacy to be gone. I always accepted the fact that name was a bit higher than godaddy (previous domain registrar) but to me it was worth it b/c of the free whois privacy. My question is why do new registrars now have to pay $1.99? Is this for charity? Is the company going bankrupt? I mean what's the issue?
jom

I just found that if I can only apply one coupon a time, which if I use whois coupon then I cannot use price discount coupon, to pull down the renewal fees to $8.20. Please consider to create a coupon for free whois + 8.20 renewal pricing. There is not much reason to continue to use name.com if without free whois and discount pricing consider there are many registrars offer .com renewal pricing at only $7.17, with ICANN fees included.
TVChatten

This is hurtful and I was about to register a domain with you guys today and JUST found out about this new whois privacy thing. If something had to go up in price I'd rather it be $1 or $2 more for the .com and all than for the free whois privacy to be gone. I always accepted the fact that name was a bit higher than godaddy (previous domain registrar) but to me it was worth it b/c of the free whois privacy. My question is why do new registrars now have to pay $1.99? Is this for charity? Is the company going bankrupt? I mean what's the issue?
Kane

Hi,

I renewed my domains a couple of days ago and didn't use the promo code. Can you please extend my whois expiry date?

Thx.
- namedotcom
  
  Hi Kane,
  
  You can still do this by logging in to your account, clicking on the domain(s) you want to add this service to, and then checking the box to renew Whois Privacy. You can add as many as you want to your cart and then check out for free using the FREEWHOIS promo code. Hope that helps!
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Iwill

WOW Looks like I am going to move my name...$18. for whois protection bye bye name.com
- namedotcom
  
  Dear Disqus,
  
  Thank you for contacting Name.com Support.
  
  Case #00319757: "[theofficialnamecomblog] Re: Private Whois Changes" has been created and a customer service representative will respond to you shortly.
  
  Thank you,
  
  Name.com Support
  
  +1.720-249-2374 from 8:00AM - 6:00PM MST, Monday - Friday.
  
  ref:00D8csHM.500CDYL52:ref
Departing Customer

The "FREEWHOIS" code doesn't work anymore. Today I registered my first domain elsewhere.
- namedotcom
  
  Dear Disqus,
  
  Thank you for contacting Name.com Support.
  
  Case #00340301: "[theofficialnamecomblog] Re: Private Whois Changes" has been created and a customer service representative will respond to you shortly.
  
  Thank you,
  
  Name.com Support
  
  +1.720-249-2374 from 8:00AM - 6:00PM MST, Monday - Friday.
  
  ref:00D8csHM.500CDZun1:ref
http://www.dogs-info.net/html/Breeds/2010/1001/Blue-Heeler-Breed.html Blue Heeler

thanks,i alway pay attention to you!~
Elvencom

I've been shopping for a new registrar and had just decided on name.com when I found out that free whois privacy was no longer being offered. If you MUST charge for whois privacy, couldn't you at least offer special pricing for bulk domain registrations?
- Ashley
  
  Hey, if you use the promo code 'FREEWHOIS' you can get it for free
Daniel

Since the private whois is $3,99?
- Ashley
  
  Hey Daniel, Who.is is usually $7.99 but we offer it at $3.99 - if you use the promo code 'FREEWHOIS' however, then you can get the service for free!
Anonymous

Hello,

Thank you for the post and sharing the information with us.
I found it very interesting.

When you see such articles you want to come back to check
something new posted here or commented
Website Design Delhi
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=546507510 Nini Magart

This is not true. I have registered my two domains in 2008 or 2009 with free private who is, and when I renewed them in October and December 2010 you charged 7,99 private who is per domain!
- Anonymous
  
  Hey Nini, you can use the promo code, 'FREEWHOIS' to receive free private who is.
http://www.dailytut.com Robin

Freewhois saves me huge everytime i book a domain name. Thanks for that. I love Name.com always.

Robin
namedotcom

Hey, ever since rolling these changes out we've provided a promo code for free whois privacy, it was FREEWHOIS and now it's 'PRIVACYPLEASE' just type that in the promo box at checkout.
Ganeshan Nadarajan

Name.com
've been able to offer
Private Whois for free for a long time .Changes can impact customer's plans and budgets
- namedotcom
  
  Hey Ganeshan. You can use the promo code, 'PRIVACYPLEASE' for free private whois

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