The artswing.com redemption case

Our Question:

A domain owner asked to redeem their expired domain name during its redemption period. But the Registrar Tucows Domains Inc.(https://www.tucows.com) refused, and rendered their Domain Registration Agreement with users:

RENEWALS AND FORFEITURE. Domain names are registered for a finite period of time. You will receive reminders immediately prior to the expiration of your registration inviting you to renew your domain name and specifying the amount of time you have to renew your domain name. In the event that you fail to renew your domain name in a timely fashion, your registration will expire and we may, at our discretion, elect to assume the registration and may hold it for our own account, delete it or we may sell it to a third party. You acknowledge and agree that your right and interest in a domain name ceases upon its expiration and that any expired domain name may be made available for registration by a third party. If you fail to renew your registration, your domain name may cease to resolve and visitors to your site may be redirected to a default page informing them that the site is no longer in service. This parked or default page may feature advertisements posted by us for our own account.

Does this provision violate ICANN’s Domain Name Registration Policy with accredited Registrars regarding Redemption terms and conditions?

OpenAI Answer:

Short answer – yes, if the domain was already in the Redemption Grace Period (RGP) and Tucows still refused to process a restore request, that refusal is contrary to the ICANN-mandated Expired Registration Recovery Policy (ERRP) and the 2013 Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA). The wording of clause 15 itself is not automatically unlawful, but the conduct you describe would breach Tucows’ ICANN obligations.

1. What ICANN actually requires during Redemption

ICANN instrument	Key requirement on the registrar	Where it is written
2013 RAA §3.7.5	“The registrant retains the right under the existing redemption-grace-period provisions to recover the name at any time during the Redemption Grace Period.” (ICANN)
Expired Registration Recovery Policy (ERRP)	If the registry for the TLD offers RGP, “the registrar must allow the Registered-Name Holder at Expiration (RAE) to restore the domain during that 30-day period.” (icann-community.atlassian.net)
PEDNR PDP Recommendation #14 (implemented via ERRP)	“If a registrar offers registrations in a gTLD that supports the RGP, the registrar must allow the RAE to redeem the name after it has entered RGP.”

ICANN also obliges registrars to publish their redemption fee and to accept a restore request from the registrant (or its authorised agent) any time up to the end of the 30-day RGP. (icann-community.atlassian.net)

2. How clause 15 of the Tucows DRA fits (or doesn’t)

Clause 15 says that once a name expires Tucows “may, at our discretion, elect to assume the registration … delete it or sell it.” That language describes what can happen before the domain is deleted at the registry. Nothing in ICANN policy prevents a registrar from:

auto-renewing the name into its own account, or
deleting the name.

However:

For at least the first eight days after expiration the registrant must still be able to renew the name with the registrar. (ERRP, Recommendation #2)
If the registrar deletes the name, the resulting 30-day RGP is mandatory for all non-sponsored gTLDs – and the registrar must process a restore request from the former registrant. (icann-community.atlassian.net)
Any contractual term that purports to waive those ICANN-conferred rights is unenforceable; the consensus policy overrides private contract.

So the clause is not per se prohibited, but it cannot lawfully be applied to deny an RGP restore.

3. When a refusal breaches ICANN policy

A refusal is a compliance violation iff all of the following are true:

The domain is a gTLD (ICANN policies do not bind ccTLDs).
WHOIS/RDAP shows the status redemptionPeriod (or “pendingDelete‐restorable”), i.e., it has been deleted and is inside the 30-day RGP.
The requester is the Registered Name Holder at Expiration (or its duly authorised agent) and is willing to pay the posted redemption fee.
No ICANN-recognised “extenuating circumstance” (court order, UDRP lock, fraud investigation, etc.) applies.

If those conditions hold, the registrar must submit a Restore transaction to the registry. Refusing is a breach of the ERRP and RAA.

4. What the registrant can do

Collect evidence
- Screenshot or RDAP dump showing the domain status = redemptionPeriod.
- Correspondence where Tucows (or the reseller) refuses the restore.
- Price list / registration agreement showing the redemption fee (or the absence of one).
Escalate inside Tucows Hover/OpenSRS resellers sometimes mis-state policy; ask for escalation to Tucows Compliance.
File an ICANN complaint Use the “Domain Renewal / Redemption Grace Period Complaint” form on icann.org. (Link appears on About Redeeming a Domain Name in Redemption Grace Period page.) (ICANN)
Time-sensitive The registrar can still submit the restore up to the end of the 30-day window, so move quickly.

5. Bottom line

ICANN policy is crystal-clear: if a gTLD is in the Redemption Grace Period, the original registrant must have the ability to redeem it through the sponsoring registrar. Tucows’ DRA wording cannot override that. If Tucows actually refused a bona-fide restore request during RGP, that refusal violates the ERRP and the RAA, and you have grounds for an ICANN compliance complaint.