15 ms·

Freenom, the free domains website, is a scam

307 points by hackermondev 5y ago

san9128 5y ago
This seems to be a pure scam if it's true. Not even a bait and switch.
- jeroenhd 5y ago
  I get the sentiment, but can something free really be a scam?
  - cturner 5y ago
    When a service operates in bad faith, it is a scam.
  - rudian 5y ago
    It’s still an agreement. Countries sign those all the time and nobody pays anything.
  - josephcsible 5y ago
    Imagine if someone gave you a free bookshelf. You took it home and loaded it up with books. Then they came back and said that unless you gave them $1000, the bookshelf and all the books on it were theirs now. Would you not consider that a scam either?
    - jeroenhd 5y ago
      I don't believe any physical metaphor counts here. No goods exchange hands here. In fact, in many cases, customers aren't even the technical owners of the domain, merely the licensees. DNS, especially dealing in domain names, is a service. In this case, I'd say they provide you with free newsletters if you sign up. If you send out enough newsletters to others, they stop giving you free stuff and you have to pay. I've found this in the terms and conditions: --- 11.2. Renewal As long as you have remained in compliance with each of the terms of this Agreement from the date you agreed to be bound by this Agreement, including without limitation the minimum use requirements set forth in Section 10.1, we may elect in our sole discretion to (i) allow you to upgrade to the Paid Service at the prevailing applicable rate, (ii) automatically renew this Agreement for a term, determined by Freenom, from such date (the "Renewal Period") and (iii) continue providing you with FREE DOMAIN subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement (including a renewal of the registration of the domain name provided to you in connection with FREE DOMAIN). --- This seems pretty clear to me. At the end of a term (which can be a month or a year) they can decide to require upgrading to a paid subscription. If you choose not to renew for the paid plan, your domain will be resold like any domain reseller will do. The main problem I see here is the lack of a renewal notice. I've always received renewal warnings myself, but always with high spam scores (because free TLDs are often used for sending spam). This could be a problem with the customer's spam filter filtering out the right renewal notices. This doesn't look as much like a scam as it looks like looking a gift horse in the mouth in my opinion.
      - kenniskrag 5y ago
        You also own the domain only if you paid: > As a PAID domain name registrant, you receive the benefits of holding the legal license rights of the domain name.
    - throwawaycities 5y ago
      It’s more akin to any other domain registrar that offers a discount for the 1st year of registration. Or a hosting company that gives you a “free” 1 year domain registration with paid hosting. That’s not a scam or fraud when the renewal period rolls around and the annual fee increases from the discount rate or you have to pay for the 1st time. The scam/fraud seems to be the review alleging the reviewer had a high traffic domain name that was just taken without notice so Freenom could sell it.
      - konschubert 5y ago
        Freenom doesn't sell the domain at the nominal fee, they put it up for auction. They also hide this fact from their victims until it's too late.
        throwawaycities 5y ago
        I have registered at least a dozen for the standard fee (~$10/year).
    - belorn 5y ago
      A bookshelf is a problematic comparison since we do have devices that people buy that has a built in bookshelf, one that can remove books at the company discretion. The digital books you loaded it up with at home is not owned by you, nor do you have any natural right to the book or the bookshelf. However, they won't lock it up and demand payment. They simply just lock it up at the discretion of the company. The digital bookshelf will record and analyze what you read which is a bit of switch-and-bait tactic.
  - bastawhiz 5y ago
    Yes, because it's not a net-zero outcome. More harm has been done to you than if you hadn't used their service at all. If I give you a free car under the pretense that I'm a cool guy who gives away free cars, and you use that car to get a job delivering pizza, then I take back the car unless you give me money, that's a scam. You've been scammed. I've committed fraud to make money from you after I've put you in a vulnerable position.
    - kadoban 5y ago
      Is that actually a scam? Sounds like you just got free use of car for a while, how are you worse off? In Freenom's case, you are giving the domain name value by using it and driving traffic to it. It didn't have value to begin with. The same thing isn't true in the car analogy.
      - bastawhiz 5y ago
        Yes, it's still a scam. The domain was not provided with the assumption that it would be taken away. Nobody starts an online business with the expectation that they're only borrowing the domain and will need to pay what essentially a ransom. If you replace the car in my analogy with a house, it's even clearer. It's hard to change where you live for a ton of reasons. Demanding unexpected payment is a scam, because I wasn't anticipating paying under the agreement, and I'm left with little choice in the matter (lest I become homeless). If I start a profitable business with a domain that's taken from me, I'm either forced to pay this ransom or start my business from scratch. > It didn't have value to begin with But your use of it created value, with the expectation that you would be able to keep that value. The deception that the value is not actually yours to keep makes it a scam. It's especially scammy, since they seemingly only do this to domains valuable enough to extract meaningful value from: they're selectively targeting valuable properties to extort.
        kadoban 5y ago
        To be clear, I agree that Freenom's behavior is a scam. I've been on board with that the whole time. The car analogy seems questionable-at-best to me though, yeah it doesn't have the same elements. A car isn't hard to switch out, and you're not adding any value to it by using it. At worst you're right back where you started. The house analogy does seem better because it's hard to switch.
  - layoutIfNeeded 5y ago
    If I install an internet-connected smart lock on your door for free, then after a few months, I remotely lock you out of your apartment and demand money for letting you in, am I really scamming you? It was free after all!
    - throwawaycities 5y ago
      If you buy a Tesla and they give you a certain driving mode for Free for X months, then Tesla disables it after X months unless you pay for it that’s not a scam. When I register a domain with Godaddy and they charge me $12.99 for the first year and then $18.99 for subsequent years it’s not a scam. But when Freenom give you a free domain registration for up to 12 months and then makes you pay for it to renew after the free registration period or to transfer to 3rd parties it is a scam? Note, I do actually think the Tesla thing was a scam and fraud because they never disclosed to buyers certain software features were temporary as part of a trial period and would cost thousands of dollars after the trial period. Freenom on the other hand discloses the limited free registration period and the $10 annual registration fees, like Godaddy discloses the 1st year discount.
      - layoutIfNeeded 5y ago
        >Freenom on the other hand discloses the limited free registration period and the $10 annual registration fees When the company literally has FREE in its name, and their site is covered with ads boasting “FREE DOMAIN NAMES”, I don’t think that disclosing the true nature of their offer in the fine print legitimizes their business model. It’s a scam, because people didn’t have informed consent, and I don’t care about the legalese.
        throwawaycities 5y ago
        That’s pretty disingenuous, it’s not “hidden” in terms and conditions. And it’s not complicated legalese. If it’s a scam why do they have sections explaining “paid and free domains” why do they have a “price chart”. Free is in their name because they offer a free 12 month domain registration unlike other domain registrars which typically all offer discounts for the first year.
  - npteljes 5y ago
    Merriam-Webster defines scam as a "fraudulent or deceptive act or operation". So yes.
  - muzani 5y ago
    Look at this page: https://www.freenom.com/en/freeandpaiddomains.html https://www.freenom.com/en/freeandpaiddomains.html "Our mission is to bring people online and help countries develop their digital economy." "Pricing: FREE!" "Payments: No payment needed" This sounds a lot like a scam if they are later charging for those domain names.
Animats 5y ago
From the article: "When you get the domain, it will be added to your account but when your website starts to get a lot of traffic, Freenom will remove the domain from your account without notifying you and then put it on sale. You won't be able to get the domain back unless you pay a fee." Now, where else can that business model be applied? You could let people post videos for free, and when they get enough traffic, ads are added. That might be a successful business.
- roblabla 5y ago
  This doesn't just put ads on your site. It shuts it down.
  - Animats 5y ago
    Which kills the traffic. So this is a take the money and run scam, not a long-term one.
- vmception 5y ago
  yoink!
- jchw 5y ago
  The important part of this alleged business model is that the domain goes on sale, which basically forces a serious user to pay whatever the sale price is. Bait-and-switching on “ad free” is not exactly admirable but its tame by comparison.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- techrat 5y ago
  And a completely different one from what you quoted. 1) On Youtube, you can opt out of ads for your own videos. 2) If you get enough traffic to where you can add the ads, you don't lose access/ownership of the video on your account. Youtube doesn't force you to pay to keep your own videos, either. I've seen people not read the article when they post a comment, but it seems you didn't even read the part of the article you quoted before making your snarky allusion.
indigodaddy 5y ago
I’m going to assume that the scam is likely buried deep within the TOS somewhere? Has someone checked?
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  I don't remember finding it when I checked (can't remember whether that was before or after I learnt about this practice, though).
- kenniskrag 5y ago
  not really. In the terms and conditions you can check when the contract can be canceled. See above a citation.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
  The ToS have plenty of "gotchas" that allow them to pull the domain out under your feet. The content policy bans domains that show errors (last bullet point): http://www.freenom.com/en/dottk_contentpolicy_version21.pdf http://www.freenom.com/en/dottk_contentpolicy_version21.pdf So if the DB behind your CMS crashes and you don't notice it quickly, bye-bye domain. I believe a variant of this is what happened to one of my domains (just a joke/toy project, and was able to re-register it once I noticed). The TOS itself http://www.freenom.com/en/doc_tcfree_freenom_v0110.pdf http://www.freenom.com/en/doc_tcfree_freenom_v0110.pdf basically says they can do whatever they want (removed some of the redundant legalese): > you ... agree that if we determine in our sole discretion that you have violated any of the terms of this Agreement ... we shall have the right, which may be exercised in our sole discretion, to terminate this Agreement ... in such event you will forfeit to us all of your right, title and interest in and to the domain name ... we may hold, cancel, sell, transfer or otherwise assign or dispose of such domain name at our sole discretion.
techsupporter 5y ago
I don't mean to complain, but where are the details? I have two (very low traffic, so likely to never have come close to hitting this) domains at FreeNom because they're the easiest way to register emoji/punycode domains in obscure gTLDs. How does FreeNom know how much traffic your domain is getting, especially if you've set up your own DNS servers (which you can do on free domains)? There are no particulars here and I am very curious to know how this popped up.
- ev1 5y ago
  They own the entire TLD. To reach your DNS you have to go through the TLD. On free domains, the TTL is set to 300 seconds (or 60 seconds). So to reach your ns1.example.com, it goes through {a,b,c,d}.ns.tk first and refers to ns1.example.com.
  - justusthane 5y ago
    They own what entire TLD? .tk, .ml, .ga, .cf, and .gq? I don't think so.
    - jeroenhd 5y ago
      They do own .tk [0] and completely service others [1][2][3][4], actually. They run the TLDs (in the name of poor countries). [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.tk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.tk [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.ga https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.ga [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.cf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.cf [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.gq https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.gq [4]: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20130407005038/en/Mali-.ML-Domain-Names-Free https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20130407005038/en/Mal...
      - tialaramex 5y ago
        Poor countries are often eager to sell some right their country has, as a sovereign entity, but is not using - even for a relatively modest sum of foreign currency. In a corrupt country the money might never see the treasury, going straight into some official's pockets. Of course, such arrangements are not very reliable. The relationship between a sovereign entity and an individual, or even a small corporation, is unbalanced. The rules of the game are set by one party, and varied at their whim. "But that's not fair" might work in countries that pride themselves on fairness, such as the United States of America (though don't count on it) but it won't get you very far in Equatorial Guinea. If these arrangements annoy the other sovereign entities, they might do something about it. For example, the Paris MOU (and subsequently similar Port State Control rules in much of the developed world) - is what happened when European states were annoyed that places like Panama were not pulling their weight when it came to safety and employment standards on commercial shipping, and operated Open Registers (which the Europeans argued were in fact mere "Flags of Convenience") to earn money without spending that money where it was needed. But if they just annoy you, a mere individual with no rights on the world stage at all, you can go whistle. You are not even eligible to complain to most of the bodies that claim jurisdiction over sovereign entities, another sovereign entity would need to take up the complaint.
riffic 5y ago
A) You get what you pay for. B) The top-level domains offered here are absolute garbage and are generally seen as problematic. See A. C) Freenom has a lot of power as the holder of its namespace. Don't like that? Bring it up with ICANN. Because the Internet is built around a lot of abstractions that only make sense in light of the historical context at the time the technology was originally adopted, it really doesn't lend itself to being friendly to newbies. These people are actively preyed upon by a hostile industry full of shady operators.
- mm983 5y ago
  i think they had free .ml at some point which has become a decent domain because of machine learning
  - riffic 5y ago
    jeez. people should absolutely know better because the ccTLD is for Mali, a somewhat unstable central African country. who cares what the letters alternatively stand for? Any website built on this is already on a shaky foundation.
    - setr 5y ago
      Is there any domain other than com/edu/gov that’s actually used for its official meaning, and isn’t hosted by a government body? I feel like 99% of .ly sites have nothing to do with libya
      - detaro 5y ago
        I'd guess most ccTLDs are primarily used for the country, only a few get commonly "misused".
        subhro 5y ago
        /me looks at .io and wonders.
kreetx 5y ago
I, too, once had a domain from them. The site got zero popularity (had only a static "hello world"), then suddenly got removed with no response from support. Suspected it was some glitch and since it was free then thought nobody is actually looking at it. Never dug further. Interestingly enough the domain is online again with apparently legitimate (no spam or adds) content.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
  I think they delete your domain without warning or notification if it stops serving (e.g. server goes down for a while without you noticing). That or their renewal reminders were not working correctly at some point. "Lost" one of my domains that way (was able to re-register it once I noticed). They're an option for fun projects that you don't expect to last a year and don't care about, definitely not for anything serious.
pluc 5y ago
Your caps lock is on
electricant 5y ago
How ia the traffic to your website measured? Is it based on the DNS records or what?
- joshxyz 5y ago
  Maybe through a third-party, like alexa. They just send the domain name then they get back traffic stats?
- sodality2 5y ago
  They own the DNS for all (?) of the free domains (tk, ml, ga, cq, others) thus can track lookup counts
layoutIfNeeded 5y ago
The good old .tk business model :-)
- sascha_sl 5y ago
  This seems to be the same company. Clicking on "Policies" on dot.tk forwards to Freenom.
yoursunny 5y ago
Freenom free domains only grant you usage rights. The registrant listed in WHOIS is still their company. You don't own the domain. I have a few Freenom domains, but they are only for short-term use (e.g. try out a new ACME client). Nobody should use a Freenom domain on a serious website.
ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
This is nothing new. I ran into this in the 1990s. I had to basically arm-wrestle one of these organizations to get a domain released. I think they gave it to me, because I made such a pain out of myself, that it wasn't worth it.
Klasiaster 5y ago
If you need a free domain, I would recommend to rather use a free subdomain from https://dynv6.com/ https://dynv6.com/ which has a featureful managment UI and API.
- tinus_hn 5y ago
  Note that according to browsers every subdomain of such a service is in the same origin, they can read each other’s cookies and run Javascript in each other’s sites.
  - yorwba 5y ago
    dynv6.net is on the public suffix list: https://publicsuffix.org/list/public_suffix_list.dat https://publicsuffix.org/list/public_suffix_list.dat The other domains they offer apparently aren't.
  - nbin 5y ago
    Same site, not origin, at least for the domains that aren't on the public suffix list as mentioned below. The origin will always differ.
murple 5y ago
When will we move to some kind of decentralized domains from this "always pay for rent" model?
- layoutIfNeeded 5y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zooko%27s_triangle https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zooko%27s_triangle
  - capableweb 5y ago
    From linked page: > Several systems which exhibit all three properties of Zooko's triangle have now been created, including: > Computer scientist Nick Szabo's paper "Secure Property Titles with Owner Authority" illustrated that all three properties can be achieved up to the limits of Byzantine fault tolerance. > Activist Aaron Swartz described a naming system based on Bitcoin employing Bitcoin's distributed blockchain as a proof-of-work to establish consensus of domain name ownership. These systems remain vulnerable to Sybil attack, but are secure under Byzantine assumptions. > Several platforms implement refutations of Zooko's conjecture, including: Twister (which use Swartz' system with a bitcoin-like system), Blockstack (separate blockchain), Namecoin (separate blockchain), LBRY (separate blockchain and peer-to-peer file-sharing), Monero OpenAlias and Ethereum Name Service.
calmd 5y ago
Who is behind Freenom? Shouldn't they have to disclose this method of business in their TOS?
runnr_az 5y ago
You can buy their domains - in that respect, they function like “regular” domains. Also, they support emoji
mrtweetyhack 5y ago
Spam them with a bunch of fake accounts with fake domain names that they have to pay for
znpy 5y ago
Ah, this again. Freedom is fine, it's just that people don't read the terms and conditions before clicking "I agree". I have a .tk domain that I bought in 2008, never had a problem, and I've been using that for all sort of things (including running a mail server). The thing is, you're supposed to read the terms and conditions before using something, AS FOR EVERYTHING. When I registered (and later bought) the domain the terms and conditions clearly stated that you do not get legal ownership of the domain with the free offering (which is more akin to a lease than to a registration).
- matkoniecz 5y ago
  > The thing is, you're supposed to read the terms and conditions before using something, AS FOR EVERYTHING. Doing it for everything is impossible. Reading it for critical things is fine and needed, but for everything I would need to hire several lawyers.
  - aflag 5y ago
    You can have a good understanding of most T&C by just having basic understanding of the law and using common sense. Obviously you’ll miss one thing or another due to not being a specialist. Also, a lot of these contracts have very standard clauses that you can pretty much skip once you realise you read it before. If you’re used to always reading those it’s not really an effort, it takes 10 minutes or less.
paulpauper 5y ago
No one should be surprised by this
FounderBurr 5y ago
Again, like “free software”, payment is always extracted by other means. If you want something just buy it.
- josephcsible 5y ago
  Are you mixing up free software with freeware and/or shareware?
- riffic 5y ago
  nah, this is nothing like free software. it's 2021 are we still doing the FUD thing here?
Jorengarenar 5y ago
And what to do now with my joren.ga ?
throwawaycities 5y ago
I have some experience with Freenom. In fact after seeing a Show HN for Mailoji (single character emoji emails) I found the TLD .gq and registered a number of county flag single emoji domains. In my experience it is not a total scam at all, rather they offer a freemium business model which is unique in the domain space. Like many other freemium services the free tier is limited and just a means of getting you to upgrade. For example the free domain registration is limited to a maximum term of 12 months, they do not allow you to transfer ownership of the free domain registrations and they even froze my account after registering maybe a few dozen single character emoji domains in rapid succession. I was actually so please with registering single character country flag emoji domains I paid the fee to upgrade and unlocked all the features. I don’t think I can use emojis on the HN comment but for reference I registered (all .gq extensions): Cuba Flag, Israel Flag, Palestinian Flag, Ireland flag, South African Flag, Nigerian Flag and a few other middle eastern county flags. As a side note the Mailoji service used the official Kazakhstan (.kz) registrar and I was interested and registered two single character country flag emoji domains with them (including Russia Flag) and they took that domain from me and gave it to a Developer in Kazakhstan that is clearly connected with employees that work for the registrar.
- josephcsible 5y ago
  > Like many other freemium services the free tier is limited and just a means of getting you to upgrade. The part that makes it a scam is that the trigger to start extracting money from you happens once you have something to lose by not doing so. Think about cloud storage providers with a 2GB free tier. Now imagine if instead of just forbidding uploads that would put you over your limit, that once you hit your limit, they held all of your existing files hostage until you paid them $100. Wouldn't you then consider them a scam?
  - throwawaycities 5y ago
    It’s not apples to apples, a domain name is an asset and a Dropbox account isn’t an asset. However the logic is the same, Dropbox extracts value once they have a reasonable belief I am so invested into their service I would be more likely to pay to upgrade than migrate my data to another freemium service. Also in my opinion Freenom makes very clear disclosures about the differences in the paid and unpaid features and rights. Just like Dropbox. To say Freenom is defrauding people would be more on par with saying GoDaddy is defrauding customers when they offer a discount on the 1st year registration and then they “extract more money” subsequent years after I have invested in the domain and have something to lose. The complaints against Freenom are clearly manufactured as well, and my guess is people like you calling it fraud haven’t used their service or customer service.
joecool1029 5y ago
Oh funny story. I have a .tk domain with freenom (used to be with dot.tk before the Dutch invaded, I guess) that was a free domain and I broke the ToS by not setting an A record for it. Unfortunately for me I had an MX record pointed to my email and some low value accounts registered to it that were now locked out to me. Determined to get this domain back, I tried all email contact methods and this failed. Never once received a response to an email asking for help. However, I did search around and discovered a phone number. This began months of me calling this number and speaking to the same Dutch woman asking about unsuspending this domain so I could purchase it. Every once in awhile I called her back during Dutch business hours (so late night for me) and had a conversation with her about it. Finally after around 4 months of persistence I got the domain back and was able to register it.
- ravenstine 5y ago
  I'm surprised that an A record for a .tk domain was even possible. If I remember correctly, those .tk domains were actually a webpage that displayed an iframe of your choice.
  - Operyl 5y ago
    There were two variants. One was the iframe service you described, but another was an actual full-on DNS-capable service. I can't remember exactly how you'd sign up specifically for each, but both were going on at the same time.
- ev1 5y ago
  Freenom and Dot.tk are one and the same, and the same Dutch owner since start
  - Sander_Marechal 5y ago
    Which owner is that? Edit: Found it: https://drimble.nl/bedrijf/amsterdam/k57803196/stichting-administratiekantoor-freenom.html https://drimble.nl/bedrijf/amsterdam/k57803196/stichting-adm... which is owned by https://drimble.nl/bedrijf/amsterdam/15705528/cervesia-acida-bv.html https://drimble.nl/bedrijf/amsterdam/15705528/cervesia-acida...
kureikain 5y ago
I run an email forwarding service for custom domain (https://hanami.run https://hanami.run) and I have to ban the usage of those “free” domains. they are a frequent amount of spam. those users also never paid. none of them. So i ended up just prevent signed up with those tlds or add those tlds into our system
- Anunayj 5y ago
  This makes sense, It'd be pretty easy for them to sign up for a domain, and then use the trial credits for sending spam/telemarketing from your SMTP servers. Though how do you deal with people using subdomains? Do you block the whole domain? How does that work for eTLDs like co.uk
- herbst 5y ago
  I had a similar service with the same issue in the past. When I banned tk I did not really see less spam, after a few weeks i just saw more legit domains doing shit.
geocrasher 5y ago
I have been suspecting that freenom is a scam for some time. I used several free domain names for some testing that I did and although one of them did have a website up for it (which is required according to their terms of service), The domain was reclaimed after one year and I would have had to pay money to renew it. Honestly though I have to admit that I wasn't surprised and I didn't go posting on the internet about it. I already knew that it is impossible to get something for nothing these days. Especially domain names! These days if I want to throw away domain name I'll go to name cheap and spend $0.88 on one.
BearsAreCool 5y ago
I use freenom for a small website I run, they're definitely weird. That said, I've never paid them anything. Freenom combined with 000webhost was the perfect tech stack to host a small website for a friends gaming guild. Weird stuff happens, but I've not paid a dime and I don't think anyone got malware. I keep regular backups of everything and if it goes down I can just rehost elsewhere and let my friends know.
- herbst 5y ago
  This was my exact stack for every little project under friends for years. But 000 burned me way to much, mostly because they disallow bon English content or did at least
takeda 5y ago
So I actually purchased .tk domain when it was still dot.tk. Unfortunately it switched to freenom. Since then it's horrible experience, is there any possibility to move the domain? Since I paid it I technically own them like a normal domain, but I just don't want to deal with them and their broken UI.
- sascha_sl 5y ago
  My registrar (INWX) offers .tk for about 10 EUR, so it's not just them.
zhte415 5y ago
I believe this is known. But no harm in making it re-known. Trying to register a throwaway domain on Freenom a few months ago (trying over several days) it was impossible. Quite literally impossible, not from UI, it just didn't let me log in.
nazrulmum10 5y ago
Thanks to share that news. I think it will help me in future
sprkwd 5y ago
Applied for a job with them. Have off a really creepy vibe. Didn’t follow it up.

307 points by hackermondev 5y ago

san9128 5y ago

This seems to be a pure scam if it's true. Not even a bait and switch.

jeroenhd 5y ago
I get the sentiment, but can something free really be a scam?
- cturner 5y ago
  When a service operates in bad faith, it is a scam.
- rudian 5y ago
  It’s still an agreement. Countries sign those all the time and nobody pays anything.
- josephcsible 5y ago
  Imagine if someone gave you a free bookshelf. You took it home and loaded it up with books. Then they came back and said that unless you gave them $1000, the bookshelf and all the books on it were theirs now. Would you not consider that a scam either?
  - jeroenhd 5y ago
    I don't believe any physical metaphor counts here. No goods exchange hands here. In fact, in many cases, customers aren't even the technical owners of the domain, merely the licensees. DNS, especially dealing in domain names, is a service. In this case, I'd say they provide you with free newsletters if you sign up. If you send out enough newsletters to others, they stop giving you free stuff and you have to pay. I've found this in the terms and conditions: --- 11.2. Renewal As long as you have remained in compliance with each of the terms of this Agreement from the date you agreed to be bound by this Agreement, including without limitation the minimum use requirements set forth in Section 10.1, we may elect in our sole discretion to (i) allow you to upgrade to the Paid Service at the prevailing applicable rate, (ii) automatically renew this Agreement for a term, determined by Freenom, from such date (the "Renewal Period") and (iii) continue providing you with FREE DOMAIN subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement (including a renewal of the registration of the domain name provided to you in connection with FREE DOMAIN). --- This seems pretty clear to me. At the end of a term (which can be a month or a year) they can decide to require upgrading to a paid subscription. If you choose not to renew for the paid plan, your domain will be resold like any domain reseller will do. The main problem I see here is the lack of a renewal notice. I've always received renewal warnings myself, but always with high spam scores (because free TLDs are often used for sending spam). This could be a problem with the customer's spam filter filtering out the right renewal notices. This doesn't look as much like a scam as it looks like looking a gift horse in the mouth in my opinion.
    - kenniskrag 5y ago
      You also own the domain only if you paid: > As a PAID domain name registrant, you receive the benefits of holding the legal license rights of the domain name.
  - throwawaycities 5y ago
    It’s more akin to any other domain registrar that offers a discount for the 1st year of registration. Or a hosting company that gives you a “free” 1 year domain registration with paid hosting. That’s not a scam or fraud when the renewal period rolls around and the annual fee increases from the discount rate or you have to pay for the 1st time. The scam/fraud seems to be the review alleging the reviewer had a high traffic domain name that was just taken without notice so Freenom could sell it.
    - konschubert 5y ago
      Freenom doesn't sell the domain at the nominal fee, they put it up for auction. They also hide this fact from their victims until it's too late.
      - throwawaycities 5y ago
        I have registered at least a dozen for the standard fee (~$10/year).
  - belorn 5y ago
    A bookshelf is a problematic comparison since we do have devices that people buy that has a built in bookshelf, one that can remove books at the company discretion. The digital books you loaded it up with at home is not owned by you, nor do you have any natural right to the book or the bookshelf. However, they won't lock it up and demand payment. They simply just lock it up at the discretion of the company. The digital bookshelf will record and analyze what you read which is a bit of switch-and-bait tactic.
- bastawhiz 5y ago
  Yes, because it's not a net-zero outcome. More harm has been done to you than if you hadn't used their service at all. If I give you a free car under the pretense that I'm a cool guy who gives away free cars, and you use that car to get a job delivering pizza, then I take back the car unless you give me money, that's a scam. You've been scammed. I've committed fraud to make money from you after I've put you in a vulnerable position.
  - kadoban 5y ago
    Is that actually a scam? Sounds like you just got free use of car for a while, how are you worse off? In Freenom's case, you are giving the domain name value by using it and driving traffic to it. It didn't have value to begin with. The same thing isn't true in the car analogy.
    - bastawhiz 5y ago
      Yes, it's still a scam. The domain was not provided with the assumption that it would be taken away. Nobody starts an online business with the expectation that they're only borrowing the domain and will need to pay what essentially a ransom. If you replace the car in my analogy with a house, it's even clearer. It's hard to change where you live for a ton of reasons. Demanding unexpected payment is a scam, because I wasn't anticipating paying under the agreement, and I'm left with little choice in the matter (lest I become homeless). If I start a profitable business with a domain that's taken from me, I'm either forced to pay this ransom or start my business from scratch. > It didn't have value to begin with But your use of it created value, with the expectation that you would be able to keep that value. The deception that the value is not actually yours to keep makes it a scam. It's especially scammy, since they seemingly only do this to domains valuable enough to extract meaningful value from: they're selectively targeting valuable properties to extort.
      - kadoban 5y ago
        To be clear, I agree that Freenom's behavior is a scam. I've been on board with that the whole time. The car analogy seems questionable-at-best to me though, yeah it doesn't have the same elements. A car isn't hard to switch out, and you're not adding any value to it by using it. At worst you're right back where you started. The house analogy does seem better because it's hard to switch.
- layoutIfNeeded 5y ago
  If I install an internet-connected smart lock on your door for free, then after a few months, I remotely lock you out of your apartment and demand money for letting you in, am I really scamming you? It was free after all!
  - throwawaycities 5y ago
    If you buy a Tesla and they give you a certain driving mode for Free for X months, then Tesla disables it after X months unless you pay for it that’s not a scam. When I register a domain with Godaddy and they charge me $12.99 for the first year and then $18.99 for subsequent years it’s not a scam. But when Freenom give you a free domain registration for up to 12 months and then makes you pay for it to renew after the free registration period or to transfer to 3rd parties it is a scam? Note, I do actually think the Tesla thing was a scam and fraud because they never disclosed to buyers certain software features were temporary as part of a trial period and would cost thousands of dollars after the trial period. Freenom on the other hand discloses the limited free registration period and the $10 annual registration fees, like Godaddy discloses the 1st year discount.
    - layoutIfNeeded 5y ago
      >Freenom on the other hand discloses the limited free registration period and the $10 annual registration fees When the company literally has FREE in its name, and their site is covered with ads boasting “FREE DOMAIN NAMES”, I don’t think that disclosing the true nature of their offer in the fine print legitimizes their business model. It’s a scam, because people didn’t have informed consent, and I don’t care about the legalese.
      - throwawaycities 5y ago
        That’s pretty disingenuous, it’s not “hidden” in terms and conditions. And it’s not complicated legalese. If it’s a scam why do they have sections explaining “paid and free domains” why do they have a “price chart”. Free is in their name because they offer a free 12 month domain registration unlike other domain registrars which typically all offer discounts for the first year.
- npteljes 5y ago
  Merriam-Webster defines scam as a "fraudulent or deceptive act or operation". So yes.
- muzani 5y ago
  Look at this page: https://www.freenom.com/en/freeandpaiddomains.html https://www.freenom.com/en/freeandpaiddomains.html "Our mission is to bring people online and help countries develop their digital economy." "Pricing: FREE!" "Payments: No payment needed" This sounds a lot like a scam if they are later charging for those domain names.

Animats 5y ago

From the article: "When you get the domain, it will be added to your account but when your website starts to get a lot of traffic, Freenom will remove the domain from your account without notifying you and then put it on sale. You won't be able to get the domain back unless you pay a fee." Now, where else can that business model be applied? You could let people post videos for free, and when they get enough traffic, ads are added. That might be a successful business.

roblabla 5y ago
This doesn't just put ads on your site. It shuts it down.
- Animats 5y ago
  Which kills the traffic. So this is a take the money and run scam, not a long-term one.
vmception 5y ago
yoink!
jchw 5y ago
The important part of this alleged business model is that the domain goes on sale, which basically forces a serious user to pay whatever the sale price is. Bait-and-switching on “ad free” is not exactly admirable but its tame by comparison.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
techrat 5y ago
And a completely different one from what you quoted. 1) On Youtube, you can opt out of ads for your own videos. 2) If you get enough traffic to where you can add the ads, you don't lose access/ownership of the video on your account. Youtube doesn't force you to pay to keep your own videos, either. I've seen people not read the article when they post a comment, but it seems you didn't even read the part of the article you quoted before making your snarky allusion.

indigodaddy 5y ago

I’m going to assume that the scam is likely buried deep within the TOS somewhere? Has someone checked?

wizzwizz4 5y ago
I don't remember finding it when I checked (can't remember whether that was before or after I learnt about this practice, though).
kenniskrag 5y ago
not really. In the terms and conditions you can check when the contract can be canceled. See above a citation.
tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
The ToS have plenty of "gotchas" that allow them to pull the domain out under your feet. The content policy bans domains that show errors (last bullet point): http://www.freenom.com/en/dottk_contentpolicy_version21.pdf http://www.freenom.com/en/dottk_contentpolicy_version21.pdf So if the DB behind your CMS crashes and you don't notice it quickly, bye-bye domain. I believe a variant of this is what happened to one of my domains (just a joke/toy project, and was able to re-register it once I noticed). The TOS itself http://www.freenom.com/en/doc_tcfree_freenom_v0110.pdf http://www.freenom.com/en/doc_tcfree_freenom_v0110.pdf basically says they can do whatever they want (removed some of the redundant legalese): > you ... agree that if we determine in our sole discretion that you have violated any of the terms of this Agreement ... we shall have the right, which may be exercised in our sole discretion, to terminate this Agreement ... in such event you will forfeit to us all of your right, title and interest in and to the domain name ... we may hold, cancel, sell, transfer or otherwise assign or dispose of such domain name at our sole discretion.

techsupporter 5y ago

I don't mean to complain, but where are the details? I have two (very low traffic, so likely to never have come close to hitting this) domains at FreeNom because they're the easiest way to register emoji/punycode domains in obscure gTLDs. How does FreeNom know how much traffic your domain is getting, especially if you've set up your own DNS servers (which you can do on free domains)? There are no particulars here and I am very curious to know how this popped up.

ev1 5y ago
They own the entire TLD. To reach your DNS you have to go through the TLD. On free domains, the TTL is set to 300 seconds (or 60 seconds). So to reach your ns1.example.com, it goes through {a,b,c,d}.ns.tk first and refers to ns1.example.com.
- justusthane 5y ago
  They own what entire TLD? .tk, .ml, .ga, .cf, and .gq? I don't think so.
  - jeroenhd 5y ago
    They do own .tk [0] and completely service others [1][2][3][4], actually. They run the TLDs (in the name of poor countries). [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.tk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.tk [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.ga https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.ga [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.cf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.cf [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.gq https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.gq [4]: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20130407005038/en/Mali-.ML-Domain-Names-Free https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20130407005038/en/Mal...
    - tialaramex 5y ago
      Poor countries are often eager to sell some right their country has, as a sovereign entity, but is not using - even for a relatively modest sum of foreign currency. In a corrupt country the money might never see the treasury, going straight into some official's pockets. Of course, such arrangements are not very reliable. The relationship between a sovereign entity and an individual, or even a small corporation, is unbalanced. The rules of the game are set by one party, and varied at their whim. "But that's not fair" might work in countries that pride themselves on fairness, such as the United States of America (though don't count on it) but it won't get you very far in Equatorial Guinea. If these arrangements annoy the other sovereign entities, they might do something about it. For example, the Paris MOU (and subsequently similar Port State Control rules in much of the developed world) - is what happened when European states were annoyed that places like Panama were not pulling their weight when it came to safety and employment standards on commercial shipping, and operated Open Registers (which the Europeans argued were in fact mere "Flags of Convenience") to earn money without spending that money where it was needed. But if they just annoy you, a mere individual with no rights on the world stage at all, you can go whistle. You are not even eligible to complain to most of the bodies that claim jurisdiction over sovereign entities, another sovereign entity would need to take up the complaint.

riffic 5y ago

A) You get what you pay for. B) The top-level domains offered here are absolute garbage and are generally seen as problematic. See A. C) Freenom has a lot of power as the holder of its namespace. Don't like that? Bring it up with ICANN. Because the Internet is built around a lot of abstractions that only make sense in light of the historical context at the time the technology was originally adopted, it really doesn't lend itself to being friendly to newbies. These people are actively preyed upon by a hostile industry full of shady operators.

mm983 5y ago
i think they had free .ml at some point which has become a decent domain because of machine learning
- riffic 5y ago
  jeez. people should absolutely know better because the ccTLD is for Mali, a somewhat unstable central African country. who cares what the letters alternatively stand for? Any website built on this is already on a shaky foundation.
  - setr 5y ago
    Is there any domain other than com/edu/gov that’s actually used for its official meaning, and isn’t hosted by a government body? I feel like 99% of .ly sites have nothing to do with libya
    - detaro 5y ago
      I'd guess most ccTLDs are primarily used for the country, only a few get commonly "misused".
      - subhro 5y ago
        /me looks at .io and wonders.

kreetx 5y ago

I, too, once had a domain from them. The site got zero popularity (had only a static "hello world"), then suddenly got removed with no response from support. Suspected it was some glitch and since it was free then thought nobody is actually looking at it. Never dug further. Interestingly enough the domain is online again with apparently legitimate (no spam or adds) content.

tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
I think they delete your domain without warning or notification if it stops serving (e.g. server goes down for a while without you noticing). That or their renewal reminders were not working correctly at some point. "Lost" one of my domains that way (was able to re-register it once I noticed). They're an option for fun projects that you don't expect to last a year and don't care about, definitely not for anything serious.

pluc 5y ago

Your caps lock is on

electricant 5y ago

How ia the traffic to your website measured? Is it based on the DNS records or what?

joshxyz 5y ago
Maybe through a third-party, like alexa. They just send the domain name then they get back traffic stats?
sodality2 5y ago
They own the DNS for all (?) of the free domains (tk, ml, ga, cq, others) thus can track lookup counts

layoutIfNeeded 5y ago

The good old .tk business model :-)

sascha_sl 5y ago
This seems to be the same company. Clicking on "Policies" on dot.tk forwards to Freenom.

yoursunny 5y ago

Freenom free domains only grant you usage rights. The registrant listed in WHOIS is still their company. You don't own the domain. I have a few Freenom domains, but they are only for short-term use (e.g. try out a new ACME client). Nobody should use a Freenom domain on a serious website.

ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago

This is nothing new. I ran into this in the 1990s. I had to basically arm-wrestle one of these organizations to get a domain released. I think they gave it to me, because I made such a pain out of myself, that it wasn't worth it.

Klasiaster 5y ago

If you need a free domain, I would recommend to rather use a free subdomain from https://dynv6.com/ https://dynv6.com/ which has a featureful managment UI and API.

tinus_hn 5y ago
Note that according to browsers every subdomain of such a service is in the same origin, they can read each other’s cookies and run Javascript in each other’s sites.
- yorwba 5y ago
  dynv6.net is on the public suffix list: https://publicsuffix.org/list/public_suffix_list.dat https://publicsuffix.org/list/public_suffix_list.dat The other domains they offer apparently aren't.
- nbin 5y ago
  Same site, not origin, at least for the domains that aren't on the public suffix list as mentioned below. The origin will always differ.

murple 5y ago

When will we move to some kind of decentralized domains from this "always pay for rent" model?

layoutIfNeeded 5y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zooko%27s_triangle https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zooko%27s_triangle
- capableweb 5y ago
  From linked page: > Several systems which exhibit all three properties of Zooko's triangle have now been created, including: > Computer scientist Nick Szabo's paper "Secure Property Titles with Owner Authority" illustrated that all three properties can be achieved up to the limits of Byzantine fault tolerance. > Activist Aaron Swartz described a naming system based on Bitcoin employing Bitcoin's distributed blockchain as a proof-of-work to establish consensus of domain name ownership. These systems remain vulnerable to Sybil attack, but are secure under Byzantine assumptions. > Several platforms implement refutations of Zooko's conjecture, including: Twister (which use Swartz' system with a bitcoin-like system), Blockstack (separate blockchain), Namecoin (separate blockchain), LBRY (separate blockchain and peer-to-peer file-sharing), Monero OpenAlias and Ethereum Name Service.

calmd 5y ago

Who is behind Freenom? Shouldn't they have to disclose this method of business in their TOS?

runnr_az 5y ago

You can buy their domains - in that respect, they function like “regular” domains. Also, they support emoji

mrtweetyhack 5y ago

Spam them with a bunch of fake accounts with fake domain names that they have to pay for

znpy 5y ago

Ah, this again. Freedom is fine, it's just that people don't read the terms and conditions before clicking "I agree". I have a .tk domain that I bought in 2008, never had a problem, and I've been using that for all sort of things (including running a mail server). The thing is, you're supposed to read the terms and conditions before using something, AS FOR EVERYTHING. When I registered (and later bought) the domain the terms and conditions clearly stated that you do not get legal ownership of the domain with the free offering (which is more akin to a lease than to a registration).

matkoniecz 5y ago
> The thing is, you're supposed to read the terms and conditions before using something, AS FOR EVERYTHING. Doing it for everything is impossible. Reading it for critical things is fine and needed, but for everything I would need to hire several lawyers.
- aflag 5y ago
  You can have a good understanding of most T&C by just having basic understanding of the law and using common sense. Obviously you’ll miss one thing or another due to not being a specialist. Also, a lot of these contracts have very standard clauses that you can pretty much skip once you realise you read it before. If you’re used to always reading those it’s not really an effort, it takes 10 minutes or less.

paulpauper 5y ago

No one should be surprised by this

FounderBurr 5y ago

Again, like “free software”, payment is always extracted by other means. If you want something just buy it.

josephcsible 5y ago
Are you mixing up free software with freeware and/or shareware?
riffic 5y ago
nah, this is nothing like free software. it's 2021 are we still doing the FUD thing here?

Jorengarenar 5y ago

And what to do now with my joren.ga ?

throwawaycities 5y ago

I have some experience with Freenom. In fact after seeing a Show HN for Mailoji (single character emoji emails) I found the TLD .gq and registered a number of county flag single emoji domains. In my experience it is not a total scam at all, rather they offer a freemium business model which is unique in the domain space. Like many other freemium services the free tier is limited and just a means of getting you to upgrade. For example the free domain registration is limited to a maximum term of 12 months, they do not allow you to transfer ownership of the free domain registrations and they even froze my account after registering maybe a few dozen single character emoji domains in rapid succession. I was actually so please with registering single character country flag emoji domains I paid the fee to upgrade and unlocked all the features. I don’t think I can use emojis on the HN comment but for reference I registered (all .gq extensions): Cuba Flag, Israel Flag, Palestinian Flag, Ireland flag, South African Flag, Nigerian Flag and a few other middle eastern county flags. As a side note the Mailoji service used the official Kazakhstan (.kz) registrar and I was interested and registered two single character country flag emoji domains with them (including Russia Flag) and they took that domain from me and gave it to a Developer in Kazakhstan that is clearly connected with employees that work for the registrar.

josephcsible 5y ago
> Like many other freemium services the free tier is limited and just a means of getting you to upgrade. The part that makes it a scam is that the trigger to start extracting money from you happens once you have something to lose by not doing so. Think about cloud storage providers with a 2GB free tier. Now imagine if instead of just forbidding uploads that would put you over your limit, that once you hit your limit, they held all of your existing files hostage until you paid them $100. Wouldn't you then consider them a scam?
- throwawaycities 5y ago
  It’s not apples to apples, a domain name is an asset and a Dropbox account isn’t an asset. However the logic is the same, Dropbox extracts value once they have a reasonable belief I am so invested into their service I would be more likely to pay to upgrade than migrate my data to another freemium service. Also in my opinion Freenom makes very clear disclosures about the differences in the paid and unpaid features and rights. Just like Dropbox. To say Freenom is defrauding people would be more on par with saying GoDaddy is defrauding customers when they offer a discount on the 1st year registration and then they “extract more money” subsequent years after I have invested in the domain and have something to lose. The complaints against Freenom are clearly manufactured as well, and my guess is people like you calling it fraud haven’t used their service or customer service.

joecool1029 5y ago

Oh funny story. I have a .tk domain with freenom (used to be with dot.tk before the Dutch invaded, I guess) that was a free domain and I broke the ToS by not setting an A record for it. Unfortunately for me I had an MX record pointed to my email and some low value accounts registered to it that were now locked out to me. Determined to get this domain back, I tried all email contact methods and this failed. Never once received a response to an email asking for help. However, I did search around and discovered a phone number. This began months of me calling this number and speaking to the same Dutch woman asking about unsuspending this domain so I could purchase it. Every once in awhile I called her back during Dutch business hours (so late night for me) and had a conversation with her about it. Finally after around 4 months of persistence I got the domain back and was able to register it.

ravenstine 5y ago
I'm surprised that an A record for a .tk domain was even possible. If I remember correctly, those .tk domains were actually a webpage that displayed an iframe of your choice.
- Operyl 5y ago
  There were two variants. One was the iframe service you described, but another was an actual full-on DNS-capable service. I can't remember exactly how you'd sign up specifically for each, but both were going on at the same time.
ev1 5y ago
Freenom and Dot.tk are one and the same, and the same Dutch owner since start
- Sander_Marechal 5y ago
  Which owner is that? Edit: Found it: https://drimble.nl/bedrijf/amsterdam/k57803196/stichting-administratiekantoor-freenom.html https://drimble.nl/bedrijf/amsterdam/k57803196/stichting-adm... which is owned by https://drimble.nl/bedrijf/amsterdam/15705528/cervesia-acida-bv.html https://drimble.nl/bedrijf/amsterdam/15705528/cervesia-acida...

kureikain 5y ago

I run an email forwarding service for custom domain (https://hanami.run https://hanami.run) and I have to ban the usage of those “free” domains. they are a frequent amount of spam. those users also never paid. none of them. So i ended up just prevent signed up with those tlds or add those tlds into our system

Anunayj 5y ago
This makes sense, It'd be pretty easy for them to sign up for a domain, and then use the trial credits for sending spam/telemarketing from your SMTP servers. Though how do you deal with people using subdomains? Do you block the whole domain? How does that work for eTLDs like co.uk
herbst 5y ago
I had a similar service with the same issue in the past. When I banned tk I did not really see less spam, after a few weeks i just saw more legit domains doing shit.

geocrasher 5y ago

I have been suspecting that freenom is a scam for some time. I used several free domain names for some testing that I did and although one of them did have a website up for it (which is required according to their terms of service), The domain was reclaimed after one year and I would have had to pay money to renew it. Honestly though I have to admit that I wasn't surprised and I didn't go posting on the internet about it. I already knew that it is impossible to get something for nothing these days. Especially domain names! These days if I want to throw away domain name I'll go to name cheap and spend $0.88 on one.

BearsAreCool 5y ago

I use freenom for a small website I run, they're definitely weird. That said, I've never paid them anything. Freenom combined with 000webhost was the perfect tech stack to host a small website for a friends gaming guild. Weird stuff happens, but I've not paid a dime and I don't think anyone got malware. I keep regular backups of everything and if it goes down I can just rehost elsewhere and let my friends know.

herbst 5y ago
This was my exact stack for every little project under friends for years. But 000 burned me way to much, mostly because they disallow bon English content or did at least

takeda 5y ago

So I actually purchased .tk domain when it was still dot.tk. Unfortunately it switched to freenom. Since then it's horrible experience, is there any possibility to move the domain? Since I paid it I technically own them like a normal domain, but I just don't want to deal with them and their broken UI.

sascha_sl 5y ago
My registrar (INWX) offers .tk for about 10 EUR, so it's not just them.

zhte415 5y ago

I believe this is known. But no harm in making it re-known. Trying to register a throwaway domain on Freenom a few months ago (trying over several days) it was impossible. Quite literally impossible, not from UI, it just didn't let me log in.

nazrulmum10 5y ago

Thanks to share that news. I think it will help me in future

sprkwd 5y ago

Applied for a job with them. Have off a really creepy vibe. Didn’t follow it up.