On December 1st, ICANN enacted a new domain name lock policy, which I previously wrote about. Although I don’t think I have been impacted by the policy change yet, I can see how it could cause issues for people who sell domain names on third party platforms.
This afternoon, NameJet sent an email to customers announcing how the auction platform will deal with the new lock policy as it applies to people who are selling domain names on NameJet. In the announcement, the company also discussed the 2.5% fee the company will be adding beginning on December 14th.
I want to share the email I received:
On December 1st, 2016 a new policy regarding domain transfers went into effect. The Transfer Policy (https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/transfer-policy-2016-06-01-en) has been mandated by ICANN to all accredited registrars. This new policy states that any “material” change to a domain’s registrant, organization, or email address will trigger a new Change of Registrant process. Any time a change is made to the above-mentioned registration information, the domain will then be placed in a 60-day transfer lock. Likewise, a notification email is sent to both parties if Registrant information changes.
For domains being sold by NameJet, when we push your domains to the NameJet holding account, the whois does NOT change (although we add Privacy Protect). By listing your domains with NameJet, you explicitly agree to “opt-out” of the 60-day inter-registrar transfer lock and authorize NameJet to act as your Designated Agent to transfer ownership of your domains sold at NameJet, without explicit email notifications of said changes. Please note, this does not require you to take any additional action, just allow us to provision the domains as needed, in line with our standard process. If you do not agree with this, you are under no further obligation to auction your domains at NameJet.
Also, as we recently announced, beginning December 14th NameJet will offer the ability for customers to Add Funds to their accounts via PayPal and Alipay! This will make it easier than ever to win and pay for domains on NameJet. In order to provide these types of features and to continue improving the NameJet experience, NameJet will also begin charging a 2.5% Online Administration Fee for all customer payments made to NameJet via any online method, such as credit card (regardless of what credit card is used), PayPal or Alipay. This fee will be applied to any payments billed for auction wins when utilizing an online method (including the credit card on file) and for adding funds to a NameJet account via an online method. Please note that paying for domains via wire transfer will NOT incur this fee. Please further note that this fee is not part of the Auction Price for a domain sold on NameJet and will not factor into payments to sellers.
Thank you for working with NameJet – we really appreciate your business! We look forward to continued success in 2017, where we will be rolling out new features and tools to make NameJet the best platform for buying and selling domains!
what is the takeaway here?