[charles_kaw]

>Why not... be nice and helpful?

Because there are rules around this stuff. Rules designed to maintain integrity of dns and trust in the system. They can't flaunt the rules, and if they did, they'd be at risk of losing accreditation.

[unknownaccount]

Registrars seem to flaunt the rules all the time and not lose accreditaion. CloudFlare cancels peoples domains prematurely due to "false positives" - gets away with it. NameCheap cancels peoples domains prematurely due to their country of origin - gets away with it.

[charles_kaw]

You seem to be using "cancels" in a very loose sense. When you're talking about actions of these providers, and their duties/responsibilities, some precision is required.

These companies are allowed to end a business relationship. They are not allowed to just "take away" a domain without just cause^. That domain is still registered and you are free to take it to another registrar.

>NameCheap cancels peoples domains prematurely due to their country of origin - gets away with it.

If you're referring to their actions about Russia, they didn't "cancel" a domain. They gave all of their users a time frame to transfer their domains out before they ended the business relationship. Now, personally, I believe their timeline was too short - but a week is a reasonable notification.

This is very different from a more colloquially understood usage of cancel, which would imply that they immediately terminated service and did not allow the domain registrant to keep the domain. That is simply not the case, and also within line with ICANN policies.

^ im not an expert on the tos or legalities of this stuff, but things like fraud or spam can definitely get your domain "taken away" on most (if not all?) tlds

[unknownaccount]

>They are not allowed to just "take away" a domain without just cause". That domain is still registered and you are free to take it to another registrar.

Im not sure you read or understand the links correctly so let me clarify.

>This is very different from a more colloquially understood usage of cancel, which would imply that they immediately terminated service and did not allow the domain registrant to keep the domain.

that is exactly what CloudFlare did. They manually set the domain to expire quickly and prevented the user from transferring it out.

In the case of NameCheap, while they did allow transfers out, also manually set the domain to expire quickly and failed to give users adequate time to transfer.

Overriding a domains expiration date to a date in the near future is akin to cancellation. Sure we could split hairs and argue semantics about the technical difference between a "forced accelerated expiry" and a "cancellation". But ultimately what matters is, in both cases, the registrars manually overrided the domains registered expiration dates with a date in near future, effectively cancelling them. 100% "taking them away without just cause".

[charles_kaw]

>Im not sure you read or understand the links correctly so let me clarify.

I did in fact.

>Sure we could split hairs

That is literally, LITERALLY the whole point of if they are "flaunting rules" or not. You said they were flaunting rules. According to those links you posted, it turns out they are not flaunting the rules. Your statement is false, your language imprecise. These things matter.

Were their actions distasteful? Sure. But they were in accordance with the rules.

[unknownaccount]

How is preventing a person from transferring out their domain + setting it to expire quickly effectively any different from outright cancelling a persons domain immediately? The end result is the same. Sure there is a technical distinction in the WHOIS but I can see how a court could find it to be the same thing in spirit(and thus, a violation of the ICANN-registrar agreement)

[smoldesu]

When you sign up for Namecheap, you are acknowledging that they can change their TOS at any time and can effectively revoke ownership of any domain you own at-will. This is the same for pretty much everyone, unless you're buying straight from ICANN.

[charles_kaw]

>I can see how a court

Wild and unbased speculation. In fact, there have been lawsuits around de-platforming that haven't gone well for the plaintiff - I can't imagine a more cut and dry scenario would make it easier :)

>Sure there is a technical distinction in the WHOIS

Now you're getting it.

[detaro]

What specifically do you mean by "cancels domains prematurely"?

[unknownaccount]

I mean canceling the domain early, before the contractually agreed up expiration date.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31576353

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30504812

[detaro]

These are two quite different cases from "what happens to the domain" perspective, and for Namecheap I don't see the formal problem - I don't believe the accreditation requires them to never terminate a customer contract, and the domain remains active and can be transferred.