A couple of years ago, I decided to register some of the .nl domain names with HostingDiscounter, for the moment it seemed fine.
Until last December, for every .nl domain you wanted to register/move/expire you needed a form as required by the SIDN. Last year December the SIDN decided that no forms are needed anymore. Which is some real progress, because from then on, everything should be possible fully electronic, right?
With all modern registrars who take their customers seriously, yes. For hostingdiscounter: no. You can register a domainname over the internet fully automatic. However, one needs to pay for changing the zonefiles (which is done by the staff manually,just like medieval times), also the changing of NameServers is done manually. And stuff gets worse, before you can cancel you contract with HostingDiscounter, you need to fill out a form, and send it by FAX or by Post, for their own administration they say. I wonder why they can’t automise that. They need to have that form 30 days before the domain name expires.
You need to specify on that form whether you want to cancel it, or move it. In case you want to move it, the move should be accomplished fourteen days before the expiration date of the contract. If it’s not accomplished fourteen days before the expiration date, they will automatically renew the contract for one more year, desperate beggers.
Though I’m not exactly sure what I want to do with the domain name it’s all about, I’m sure of one thing, I want to get rid of HostingDiscounter. I therefor modified the form in such way, that I have until the expiration date of the domain name to decide whether I move it, or let it expire permanently. They will probably not agree on that, but when I registered the domain name, this 14-day period is something that wasn’t mentioned in their terms of service, so I’m not tight to that for sure.
On the form it’s all about, they also require a signature. I don’t get the idea of that signature, it wasn’t needed when I registered the domain name, so they’ve got nothing to compare it too. However, I did personally sign the form. And as long as I sign it, it don’t matter what the sign(ature) is. Even if the signature says ‘invalid’, it is a valid signature (as approved by law). The signature I signed with, is attached to this post.
Anybody who is a big fan of bureaucracy I’d advice to register his/her domain names with hostingdiscounter. For anybody else (a vast majority I guess), please register your domain names somewhere else.
Signature:
There was a user configured who had a password that was the same as the username, while ssh running on port 22. Weird he, that someone guessed it