Encirca was the brave innovator that decided to exploit a loophole in the restrictions and offer .PRO registrations to the masses via their “Pro Forwarding” service. As the incumbent they are uniquely positioned among approved registrars. Most of the best domain names in this TLD are currently registered at Encirca. And I’ve noticed some strange behavior from them recently.
This past month I had a couple dozen expired domains delete. Typically there’s a process where expired domains are held for some sort of a grace deletion period for 30 days or so before being deleted from the registry. Early pre-registrations were being offered for .pro for $49 each (instead of the recently revised $75) and so I watched these domains drop and registered some at the new lower price. But there was no rhyme or reason to the process; indeed it seemed ad hoc or even manual! Several domains with identical expiration dates actually dropped on different days, one after another. That suggests manual tampering with the process, which is not acceptable.
Now I’m noticing another trend, that of Encirca keeping domain names instead of allowing them to delete. This (as opposed to the previous issue) is probably fair and acceptable behavior normally. One of four that should have been dropped yesterday is now registered to Encirca. That’s one of the benefits of being a registrar - getting first crack at dropping domains. The problem is that there is no way to know what to expect, even as the brand is re-launching itself, and inviting the world to come get great value at promotional prices. I expected a domain yesterday to delete, and I was ready to try to register it fresh, at the new $25 promo rate. Instead, the registrar is pressuring us to renew at the older, higher $75 price to avoid the unpredictable. Extortion plain and simple.
