Getting a .ca Domain is Bureaucratic, Baby
It wasn’t that long ago that getting a .ca domain name was almost impossible unless you were an educational institution, charity or government agency. Fortunately, times have changed so now the guy/girl on the street can pick up a .ca name if it’s available.
That said, completing the registration process involves a fair amount of bureaucracy. After buying the name from a domain retailer, you get two e-mails from the Canadian Internet Registry Authority (CIRA) that say you need to complete additional steps to complete the transaction. They give you a temporary user name and password so you can visit cira.ca within a certain period of time (I think it’s two weeks).
Once you get there, you have to provide a bunch of personal information and hit “agree” several times before your .ca name is finally and officially yours. This compares with buying a .com name from a retailer such as Namecheap.com where you tell them the domain you want, hand over $9.29, and that’s it.
Another interesting thing about the .ca domain business - and I’m not sure whether this has anything to do with CIRA’s role as the grand registration poobah - are letters that I get from domain registrars asking if I want to renew my .ca .com domain name.
In particular, Domain Registry of Canada (a private company that sounds like it’s affiliated with CIRA) sends me letters asking if I’d like to renew my domain for one year for $40, two years for $70 or five years for $160. Given I can buy a domain name for $10.95 at Netfirms, this doesn’t sound like a deal to me.
Last week, they sent me a letter about renewing a domain - horizonkempo.com - that I don’t own unless I’ve gone into the martial arts business. According to Internic.ca, I am, in fact, the owner of the domain but that’s just wrong.
In any event, how did Domain Registry of Canada get this information and, more important, how can I get them to stop sending me letters?
February 9th, 2008 at 8:23 am
Hey Mark,
Those letters are indeed annoying and cause a lot of grief both for people like you and me, and the companies that have to deal with the results of domain owners falling victim to that tactic.
In the case of .ca, there’s not much you can do right now. On .com (and others) you can use WHOIS Privacy to protect yourself. CIRA has been working on WHOIS Privacy implementation for years now, and finally in March of this year it’s supposed to happen.
When it does, make sure your Registrar offers it, and make sure you enable privacy for all your .ca domains.
James.
February 9th, 2008 at 8:51 am
James,
Thanks for the info. I’ll enable my privacy ASAP.
cheers, Mark
February 9th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
Domain Registry of Canada scrapes WHOIS.
I can prove this, because I use a simple trick to track my mailing addresses — I add an identifier to the third line. So for my WHOIS entry, it says “whois”. For a subscription to Netflix, it might say “ntflx”.
I got spam from DRoC with the tell-tale WHOIS. I emailed CIRA about this, and they were interestd, but unfortunately I moved away from Canada around the same time and never kept up with the case.
February 9th, 2008 at 7:51 pm
I was speechless when I started rec’ving letters asking to renew my .ca domains. Less from the fact that they had my information, but more so from the simple fact they were using paper mail rather than email.
February 9th, 2008 at 9:55 pm
I have a ca domain but the only spam I get is the usual enhancement products, but early on I found out how to make my who is info private. Unfortunately I cannot remember how I did it, call it a seniors moment. I did do my registration through Godaddy and they may have helped
February 9th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
I have a CA domain but I was lucky enough to figure out the Who-is privacy thing and now most of the spam is for the usual junk.
I agree that the Com listings are cheaper but I am Canadian and proud of it.
February 11th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
Mark,
There are a couple of different concerns you mention in your post that I will take the opportunity to clarify:
1. What is CIRA? – The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) is a not-for profit, member-driven organization that is responsible for administering the Registration of dot-ca domain names and maintaining the network infrastructure to support them (namely the authoritative dot-ca DNS). CIRA’s authority is delegated by the Canadian Government and ICANN.
2. ‘Bureaucracy’ – unlike most other domain names, such as dot-com (.com) or dot-net (.net) that are open to registration by anyone, Canada’s dot-ca domain names can only be registered by legitimate Canadian interests. This ensures that dot-ca domains remain available to, and representative of, Canada’s Internet community. We have established Canadian Presence Requirements (e.g. that you are a Canadian citizen, corporation, or organization) as part of the registration process to enforce this. The presence requirements do make the registration process a little longer and requires a little more contact information, but in return you stand a much better chance of finding a good domain name.
3. Confirmation Emails – Again, in this case, dot-ca domain names operate a little differently. In the dot-com world, as you pointed out, the process of registering a domain name is very quick. The reason for this is that during registration you are merely establishing a business relationship with the Registrar of your choice, e.g. namescheap.com. There is no agreement anywhere that states that you have rights to use that name other than the one between you and the Registrar, in effect making you beholden to them. In the dot-ca model, you as a Registrant have a direct relationship with your domain name and an agreement with CIRA to back it up: if you end up in a dispute with your Registrar you can easily request to transfer your domain name elsewhere; if your Registrar goes belly up your domain is still safe. Consider the limbo that thousands of Registerfly.com dot-com registrants found themselves in after they went bankrupt and decide which model is better for the customer.
4. Domain Registry of Canada (DROC) Letters – I’m a little confused on this issue as the domain you reference, horizonkempo.com, is a dot-com domain name. CIRA has nothing to do with dot-com domain names. In any case, DROC is not a CIRA Certified Registrar and as their questionable solicitation letters do not affect dot-ca Registrants so there is little we can do to prevent their business practices other than to warn registrants to be prudent when presented with such tactics. My suspicion is that DROC harvested contact information that is available publicly in the dot-com WHOIS database – as to why your name appears as the contact for horizonkempo.com I can’t hazard to guess. Note that the dot-ca WHOIS will be changing soon to prevent the publication of this type of information.
We are aware of the fact that registering a dot-ca does require a little more effort than a dot-com, but hopefully I have explained why these additional steps exist and how they ultimately benefit dot-ca domain name holders. We are constantly working to streamline and simplify the process – for example, we recently rewrote the confirmation email so it was clearer and easier to understand. Additional improvements to our processes are also being worked on at this time.
David Hicks
Director of Marketing and Communications
Canadian Internet Registration Authority - (CIRA)
February 11th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
David,
Thanks for the feedback and insight about CIRA.
Clearly, I got confused about horizonkempo.com as it has nothing to do with the .ca system. It was the connection (or apparent connection) between CIRA and Domain Registry of Canada that I was focused on.
Mark