16 October 2001

Three months after we first raised this issue businesses are still being fooled into paying too much to keep their Internet domain names.

Owners of .com.au domains have been receiving letters that appear to be routine renewal notices for their domain names. On closer examination these are letters offering to renew the registration on their behalf at an inflated price. The letters can be easily mistaken for an invoice and offer to renew the domain name for up to ten years.

At best these offers can only be described as overpriced, costing more than $200.00 for the standard two year period. The standard price for a .com.au domain renewal is $137.50.

Apart from the inflated price, the offer to have a domain name "managed" for up to ten years is also less than what it appears. Australian domain names can only be registered for two years at a time. What the customer is actually "buying" are the services of the reseller to keep the registration up to date. There is no guarantee that the reseller will be able to update the records, still be an authorised reseller, or even in business, in ten years time.

Business owners of domain names should read letters relating to domain registration carefully. Internet domains should be renewed either with the top level domain registrar, Melbourne IT for .com.au domains, or with the supplier that arranged the original registration.