I purchased a domain and now the registry wants to take it back

2 Days ago management of .io registry was transfered from Afilias to Donuts (Due to an acquisition). It is likely that during that window you registered the domain and they are now cleaning up the issue. It may be your registrar took your registration and then when they went to actually process it the registry was down, so someone else got it during that period. It could be other things, however, the bottom line is that the domain was probably never yours and there is really not much to do here. It's bad timing and bad handling of a process on your registrars end.

the entire existence of the .io registry and the people running it, presently making money from it are highly suspicious, it's supposed to be for the benefit and use of the people who lived in what's now called the "british indian ocean territory" in the general area of diego garcia.

this is a place from which the natives were evicted by force.

I somehow doubt they're getting any financial benefit from it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.io

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chagossians

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diego_Garcia

as a reminder, ethos capital are the amazing people who tried to "buy" .org a while back

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethos_Capital

If this doesn't fit the economics textbook definition of Rent Seeking, I don't know what does.

If they screwed up somehow, they're kind of obligated to fix it. Otherwise, they just stole somebody else's domain and let you register it.

I would be a little skeptical. Make sure that the email really is from your registrar. Also, it's likely that "do nothing" is your best course of action, in any case. If the email is legitimate, there's nothing you can do to stop them. If it's a scam of some kind, you avoid increasing your exposure to risk.

Tell them you will not be returning it and if they do take away your access you will pursuing legal action.

Do you think you could ever convince them by saying hey I saw this domain was available but came back 2 days later and it's not available, can you still get it for me? The answer is unequivocally no.

Know your right and defend them against overreach of private entities.

I've had this happen during new TLD launches. I owned lap.top for about a day but so did a whole lot of people. I lost that race. You don't own a domain. You rent it and the registrar can take it back. They generally don't, outside of trademark issues, legal problems or race conditions but they can.

You technically do not own a domain, but you lease it them.

"ICANN's official policy is that domains are not property to be owned. Domain names are registered (rented) by payment of an annual registration fee."

few days ago, i tried to purchase a domain on godaddy, I didn't buy it as I had to get approval from my manager so I left it in the cart and that time I was using my cellphone. Then after 3 days, I came back to godaddy through my PC and saw that the domain is now premium and they want amount close $3000 . I was kind of shocked. but then on my phone I noticed that item is still in my cart with the 20 dollar pricing, and I purchased, few days later godaddy came back and refund me the 20 dollar and took away the domain. One thing I learned is that never use a registrar search engine as they check domain with high search or interest and they immediately buy it before you.

I've purchased domains from GoDaddy and they reclaimed them, claiming that they sold them to me in error and that they had already been purchased. This is for multiple domains, within minutes of their release by the way.

Unfortunately if you do not fully own your own ICANN registrar, for example, like Facebook [1], then your domain remains in the hands of the registrar; it doesn't matter what your WHOIS states.

I've looked into this exact problem because I wanted to know, what it takes to fully and completely own your own domain. The best way is to apply for an ICANN registrar accreditation which entails these requirements [2]:

  - US$3,500 application fee, which is non-refundable regardless of whether the application is approved, denied, or withdrawn.
  - US$4,000 yearly accreditation fee due upon approval and each year thereafter.
  - $70,000 USD in liquid assets 

In the case of Facebook, they were able to receive an expedited approval since link [1] indicates that their company will not be buying nor selling any domains. It just exists for the sole purpose of owning the domain. Why did Facebook do this, you may ask?

Well, social engineering. An Njal.la hosted domain was successfully transferred to Namecheap (through no fault of Njal.la) through forged German Court records [3]. So now, no one can socially engineer the domain away from FB and I suspect the vast majority of these companies.

RIP. Looks like I won't be owning my own domain anytime soon.

[1] https://registrarsec.com/

[2] https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/financials-55-2012-02-...

[3] https://www.vice.com/en/article/qj8833/dark-fail-fake-court-...

UPDATE: that's it, the registry did take the domain back.

As I expected, they took domain for themselves... Whois says:

This name is reserved by the Registry in accordance with ICANN Policy. >>> Last update of WHOIS database: 2021-11-20T13:42:39Z <<<

:(

Nobody owns domain names derived from registries, they are merely leased and subject to recapture from either the registry at will, or the registrar with cause.

Trademarking the domain name gives you vastly better protection, since even if the registrar/registry takes it back, nobody else can use it, so the incentive for those entities to change their mind on leasing it to you is reduced.

> Right now I own the domain.

No, you don't. Read the terms and conditions.

https://unbuild.blog/2021/10/io/

Can you transfer it to a different registry?

Do not register domains on some banana islands (IO is for Indian Ocean). With ".com" or national domain you would have a chance at court.

This is part and parcel of participating in the centralized domain name system.

Anyone here familiar with the newly launched Ethereum Name Service (ENS)? All the registrations are handled on the blockchain. Would this error be possible on ENS?