Domain Registrar TotalNIC Holds Customers' Domain Names Hostage

TotalNIC illegally denies all transfers of domain registrations to other domain registrars, forcing customers to give in to paying TotalNIC to keep their domain.

When a domain that is registered through TotalNIC comes up for renewal, TotalNIC illegally blocks it's customers from choosing a competitor. Attempting to transfer a domain name from TotalNIC to another competing registrar results in the transfer request being instantly denied, even though the domain was fully authorized by the registrant. According to the rules set forth by ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), the governing body for domain names, all registrars are required to accept transfers after validation of the request by the gaining registrar. TotalNIC is violating those rules and forcing it's current customers to have to pay TotalNIC to keep their name. They are holding many domains hostage. In fact, they are holding all their customers domains hostage.

In trying to communicate with TotalNIC to try to see what can be done so that domains can be transfered, customers were unable to get anywhere. Therefore, some people have tried to make it known of these unethical practices, one person created a web page outlining all the communications they had with TotalNIC in the attempts made to transfer their domain names away from TotalNIC (http://www.coolwhois.com/totalnic.php">http://www.coolwhois.com/totalnic.php). There has been some discussions in some forums and newsgroups about this (http://www.coolwhois.com/totalnic.php#resources">http://www.coolwhois.com/totalnic.php#resources).

One person found a way to slip under TotalNICs detection to get their domain away from TotalNIC, and they want to let others know how they can transfer their domains away from TotalNIC by posting a web page about it (http://www.coolwhois.com/totalnic.php#success">http://www.coolwhois.com/totalnic.php#success).

More information can be found at http://www.coolwhois.com/totalnic.php">http://www.coolwhois.com/totalnic.php