Claiming the free domain that comes with hosting: four details to read first

Whoever is listed as registrant on the WHOIS record should be you, in your own name or your company's, and under no circumstances the host. Nearly every decent provider handles this correctly. The check has stuck around because of older horror stories about hosts putting bundled names on the register under their own details. Thirty seconds with a WHOIS lookup once the registration lands puts the question to bed.

One related clause: WHOIS privacy. Plenty of hosts hand it over at no charge, which is the honest call when registries charge pennies for the same thing. Others bill it back to you at $10-15/yr. Skip it and your name, your email address and your postal address sit in public view on the register, which at the very least is an invitation to spammers.

It arrived free alongside a hosting plan, so what is its position once that plan ends? Plainly stated: the name remains yours for whatever term has already been paid for, and it renews at the standard rate whether or not any hosting sits underneath it. The wording to look out for is the bundle clause, where cancelling inside the first year means the cost of the "free" name comes off whatever you get back. There is nothing unjust about that on its own, because the host genuinely did pay the registry. It should be written down beforehand, though, and not turn up as a shortfall in a refund you were not expecting.

Our terms sit at the dull end of the scale on purpose. The registration goes in your name, renewals follow the published flat rate, and where you take a hosting refund but hold onto the name, the only deduction is what the registry charged us. The refund policy page says all of this in ordinary sentences.