“Dotster Has Lost It's Mind!”

I've been using Dotster as my domain registrar for years, as have many of my clients. They used to be pretty cool, now there's really nothing particularly great about them. Pretty good prices, and they've been reliable. I guess that's nothing to sneeze at.

Whenever one of my domains was about to expire (any time in the next sixty days), they would send me an email to let me know. Then they'd send another one at 45 days, another at 30, and then with increasing frequency right up to the day that it was renewed or expired. It was well done, and didn't overload me with email. Maybe a little too much email if the auto-renewal feature was active... I always wished I could write back and basically say, "OK, thanks for letting me know, just send me another update after it has renewed."

Last month they switched to a new notification system. Here's the top of the email they send now:

Dear Seth Dillingham,
We've changed the way we communicate with you about your domains. From now on, instead of getting individual notices about each of your domains we will be sending you this consolidated report, once a week, showing any domains in your account that are set to expire within 60 days, their expiration date, and whether the auto renewal feature is enabled.

Sounds good, right? Yeah, except... they send one of these for every domain I own! It's exactly the opposite of what the message says, and is having the opposite of the intended effect. Rather than being more informed about the status of my domains, I've already found that I'm deleting these messages without looking. Too much junk mail!

In fact, I intentionally let one of my domains expire, as I had no use for it anymore. Yet, one of my "consolidated reports" lists this (and only this) domain.

I've written to them, but received no response. Boneheads.