Backlash Over Whois Privacy Charge — Name.com Faces
Clients voice frustration over paying for whois privacy.
When you give something away for free, it’s really hard to then start charging for it. Just ask Name.com.
On April 21 the firm disclosed via its blog that fresh domain name registrations would no longer come with free whois privacy. Domains that by now have privacy turned on will continue to receive the service for free; fresh registrations must pay $1.99 per year for the service as “promotional price”. But the firm also disclosed a coupon code to get the service for free for the first year of each domain registration.
Five days later, the blog post has 92 comments, and many of them are rather angry.
A typical comment: “This really blows. In the past 30 days I moved over 60 domains over to you since of the privacy being free AND was regarding to move another 160 domains.”
Increasing prices is difficult — but increasing them from $0 is even harder. Name.com offered freebies to existing clients but a vocal crowd is still upset. When making a move like this, sometimes it’s easiest to take a grandfathered approach. For example, when unions agree to health care concessions, they try to apply the changes only to fresh members. That way their existing members aren’t affected and don’t raise a fuss.
