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I'll have to defer to the registrar team then, as we're getting outside the purview of anything having to do with the registry. I feel that the volatile exchan

I'll have to defer to the registrar team then, as we're getting outside the purview of anything having to do with the registry. I feel that the volatile exchange rate with high sustained inflation might have something to do with it though; maybe he got a too-good exchange rate at time of initial registration and now they're updating exchange rates more frequently? Not for me to know.

emir 4y ago
The Turkish lira has lost value, but it is not a matter of fluctuation as you mentioned. I already shared the links to the exchange rates of the relevant day above. You can also verify the previous and next days yourself. We are talking about a number that is three times higher than on that day, and twice as high as today. I also contacted another domain registration service to verify this price. They said that the domain transfer fee is $843 and that they have nothing to do with it, the pricing is determined by registrar(Google in this case). Attached: https://twitter.com/EmirKarsiyakali/status/1601445697534164992 https://twitter.com/EmirKarsiyakali/status/16014456975341649... Even while writing this comment, they also responded from their own Twitter: https://twitter.com/Namecheap/status/1601447984775962625 https://twitter.com/Namecheap/status/1601447984775962625
- wanderer2323 4y ago
  The exchange rate is not exact-on day. It's not exact-on-month even. I switched just a couple domain names from USD to TRY and calculated the exchange rate and e.g. $180 domains go for TRY 3200 which implies USD/TRY 17.78 -- last seen in July. If the price of forum.dev is indeed $850 then the attached TRY 13040 invoice implies USD/TRY 15.34 which was last seen in May. The $12 domains go for TRY 75 which implies USD/TRY is 6.25, last seen in 2020. It looks to me that the prices in TRY are simply set by hand and not refreshed that often. OP got a nice deal via such manually set price in 2021 and that's all that is going on here. Disclaimer: I work at Google but I have absolutely nothing to do with domains or forex rates.
  - sedatk 4y ago
    Yes but that's plausible only if they had set the rate in 2018 and had never refreshed it for more than two years. "Not exact-on day" is a bit stretch to explain an almost a three year difference, isn't it?
    - CydeWeys 4y ago
      That kind of does seem to be what actually happened, though.
- ryan29 4y ago
  > They said that the domain transfer fee is $843 and that they have nothing to do with it, the pricing is determined by registrar(Google in this case). The wholesale price is determined by the registry (Google), but the retail price will include markup from the registrar (Namecheap, Porkbun, Google). In the case of .dev Google runs the registry and acts as a registrar. As for registrars, that comparable (6b.dev) is $709 at Porkbun, $720 at Google, and $843 at Namecheap. Namecheap is marking it up more than the other registrars. I wonder if your registration last year included any kind of first year discount. This is the first time I've seen someone show an actual receipt for this type of complaint. I estimated the pricing at about $315USD vs $700USD. That's enough of an increase that I'm really curious to know what happened.
sedatk 4y ago
For the exchange rate fluctuation to explain this, USDTRY had to hit 5.1 or so which hadn’t happened since 2018. There was no way the rate hit 5.1 from 13.67 in a day. https://www.google.com/search?q=usd+try&client=safari&hl=en-us&ei=ABmUY6zPIeqpptQPk_Ki4AU&oq=usd+try&gs_lcp=ChNtb2JpbGUtZ3dzLXdpei1zZXJwEAMyEAgAEIAEELEDEIMBEEYQggIyBQgAEJECMgUIABCRAjIFCAAQgAQyBQgAEIAEMgUIABCABDIFCAAQgAQyBQgAEIAEOgoIABBHENYEELADOggIABCPARDqAjoECAAQQzoLCAAQgAQQsQMQgwE6EQguEIAEELEDEIMBEMcBENEDOg8IABCxAxCDARBDEEYQggI6CggAELEDEIMBEENKBAhBGABQ2Q1YzhdguR1oA3AAeACAAakBiAG8BJIBAzYuMZgBAKABAbABD8gBCMABAQ&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-serp https://www.google.com/search?q=usd+try&client=safari&hl=en-...
ryan29 4y ago
I never really thought about it before, but everything on Google Domains is shown in my local currency (CAD) and I'm fairly sure I get billed in local currency. It's nice having everything in my local currency, but they don't do a good job of making it clear the underlying pricing is USD. I think this person's case is a good example of where that can be problematic. Even if they had paid the correct price originally, they'd be seeing a 35% price increase because of the exchange rate. It's not unreasonable for them to have assumed the original purchase and renewals were always going to be in their local currency without fluctuation due to foreign exchange rates. I skimmed ICANN's registrar accreditation agreement for info about pricing and it basically says registrars can price domains however they want. The registry agreement has pricing related limitations, so I think the intent is to ensure registries don't engage in abusive pricing with the assumption that competition will keep the registrars honest because registrants can transfer their domain to a new registrar if they're being mistreated. That leaves this person with no recourse. The registrar (in my opinion) undercharged them and didn't do a good job of communicating the true ongoing cost of the domain. Transferring to a competing registrar doesn't help because the registry pricing for the domain is going to be around $700 USD while the registrant's expectations were set at TRY4360 ($230 USD today). There aren't any great options to make it right either. The registry can't start discounting domains to fix mistakes made by a registrar, the registrar can't take a loss of $470 / year (at current exchange rates, potentially forever), and the registrant shouldn't have to pay $700 USD / year for a domain they thought was TRY4360 ($230 USD today). To make it worse, the registrant's expectations didn't get reevaluated until the bill for renewal came due and if they've spent a year developing on the domain it feels like extortion (to them). It's also not fair to expect the registrant to realize they're underpaying. Price differences between registrars are enough for people to assume a low price is the result of finding a registrar with better pricing. Google Domains isn't the only registrar that gives the impression domains are priced in local currency either. Gandi bills me in CAD and doesn't mention USD when I'm buying domains. Namecheap shows me prices in CAD, but bills in USD and it's not clear USD is the real price rather than simply being the billing currency. Forget you know the registry sets prices in USD and go pretend to register 6b.dev on Google Domains. Select a foreign currency and see if you can figure out the price will fluctuate based on the exchange rate for USD. I'm not sure where the OP got the idea renewal would only be $12 rather than the TRY4360 they paid originally. There's nothing that left me with that impression.

emir 4y ago

The Turkish lira has lost value, but it is not a matter of fluctuation as you mentioned. I already shared the links to the exchange rates of the relevant day above. You can also verify the previous and next days yourself. We are talking about a number that is three times higher than on that day, and twice as high as today. I also contacted another domain registration service to verify this price. They said that the domain transfer fee is $843 and that they have nothing to do with it, the pricing is determined by registrar(Google in this case). Attached: https://twitter.com/EmirKarsiyakali/status/1601445697534164992 https://twitter.com/EmirKarsiyakali/status/16014456975341649... Even while writing this comment, they also responded from their own Twitter: https://twitter.com/Namecheap/status/1601447984775962625 https://twitter.com/Namecheap/status/1601447984775962625

wanderer2323 4y ago
The exchange rate is not exact-on day. It's not exact-on-month even. I switched just a couple domain names from USD to TRY and calculated the exchange rate and e.g. $180 domains go for TRY 3200 which implies USD/TRY 17.78 -- last seen in July. If the price of forum.dev is indeed $850 then the attached TRY 13040 invoice implies USD/TRY 15.34 which was last seen in May. The $12 domains go for TRY 75 which implies USD/TRY is 6.25, last seen in 2020. It looks to me that the prices in TRY are simply set by hand and not refreshed that often. OP got a nice deal via such manually set price in 2021 and that's all that is going on here. Disclaimer: I work at Google but I have absolutely nothing to do with domains or forex rates.
- sedatk 4y ago
  Yes but that's plausible only if they had set the rate in 2018 and had never refreshed it for more than two years. "Not exact-on day" is a bit stretch to explain an almost a three year difference, isn't it?
  - CydeWeys 4y ago
    That kind of does seem to be what actually happened, though.
ryan29 4y ago
> They said that the domain transfer fee is $843 and that they have nothing to do with it, the pricing is determined by registrar(Google in this case). The wholesale price is determined by the registry (Google), but the retail price will include markup from the registrar (Namecheap, Porkbun, Google). In the case of .dev Google runs the registry and acts as a registrar. As for registrars, that comparable (6b.dev) is $709 at Porkbun, $720 at Google, and $843 at Namecheap. Namecheap is marking it up more than the other registrars. I wonder if your registration last year included any kind of first year discount. This is the first time I've seen someone show an actual receipt for this type of complaint. I estimated the pricing at about $315USD vs $700USD. That's enough of an increase that I'm really curious to know what happened.

sedatk 4y ago

For the exchange rate fluctuation to explain this, USDTRY had to hit 5.1 or so which hadn’t happened since 2018. There was no way the rate hit 5.1 from 13.67 in a day. https://www.google.com/search?q=usd+try&client=safari&hl=en-us&ei=ABmUY6zPIeqpptQPk_Ki4AU&oq=usd+try&gs_lcp=ChNtb2JpbGUtZ3dzLXdpei1zZXJwEAMyEAgAEIAEELEDEIMBEEYQggIyBQgAEJECMgUIABCRAjIFCAAQgAQyBQgAEIAEMgUIABCABDIFCAAQgAQyBQgAEIAEOgoIABBHENYEELADOggIABCPARDqAjoECAAQQzoLCAAQgAQQsQMQgwE6EQguEIAEELEDEIMBEMcBENEDOg8IABCxAxCDARBDEEYQggI6CggAELEDEIMBEENKBAhBGABQ2Q1YzhdguR1oA3AAeACAAakBiAG8BJIBAzYuMZgBAKABAbABD8gBCMABAQ&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-serp https://www.google.com/search?q=usd+try&client=safari&hl=en-...

ryan29 4y ago

I never really thought about it before, but everything on Google Domains is shown in my local currency (CAD) and I'm fairly sure I get billed in local currency. It's nice having everything in my local currency, but they don't do a good job of making it clear the underlying pricing is USD. I think this person's case is a good example of where that can be problematic. Even if they had paid the correct price originally, they'd be seeing a 35% price increase because of the exchange rate. It's not unreasonable for them to have assumed the original purchase and renewals were always going to be in their local currency without fluctuation due to foreign exchange rates. I skimmed ICANN's registrar accreditation agreement for info about pricing and it basically says registrars can price domains however they want. The registry agreement has pricing related limitations, so I think the intent is to ensure registries don't engage in abusive pricing with the assumption that competition will keep the registrars honest because registrants can transfer their domain to a new registrar if they're being mistreated. That leaves this person with no recourse. The registrar (in my opinion) undercharged them and didn't do a good job of communicating the true ongoing cost of the domain. Transferring to a competing registrar doesn't help because the registry pricing for the domain is going to be around $700 USD while the registrant's expectations were set at TRY4360 ($230 USD today). There aren't any great options to make it right either. The registry can't start discounting domains to fix mistakes made by a registrar, the registrar can't take a loss of $470 / year (at current exchange rates, potentially forever), and the registrant shouldn't have to pay $700 USD / year for a domain they thought was TRY4360 ($230 USD today). To make it worse, the registrant's expectations didn't get reevaluated until the bill for renewal came due and if they've spent a year developing on the domain it feels like extortion (to them). It's also not fair to expect the registrant to realize they're underpaying. Price differences between registrars are enough for people to assume a low price is the result of finding a registrar with better pricing. Google Domains isn't the only registrar that gives the impression domains are priced in local currency either. Gandi bills me in CAD and doesn't mention USD when I'm buying domains. Namecheap shows me prices in CAD, but bills in USD and it's not clear USD is the real price rather than simply being the billing currency. Forget you know the registry sets prices in USD and go pretend to register 6b.dev on Google Domains. Select a foreign currency and see if you can figure out the price will fluctuate based on the exchange rate for USD. I'm not sure where the OP got the idea renewal would only be $12 rather than the TRY4360 they paid originally. There's nothing that left me with that impression.