I have had a two-letter .mu domain since 2011. I went to renew it this year, and the renewal price is showing as $5,600 in my cart, but the renewal price on the registrar’s website says $170 as it had been for many years.

I have put in a ticket to get an explanation, but I fear it’s some “premium domain” bullshit from the TLD operator.

I have two weeks to figure this out. I’m really hoping I can appeal somehow. Does anyone have any experience negotiating with a TLD operator?

I tried adding it to the cart of a different registrar for transfer, and although their transfer price for this TLD is listed as $75, it’s showing $5,516.50 for the transfer price when it’s in my cart.

My site is just a fun artistic site with no ads, tracking, store, or anything. I spend $170 a year on it and don’t make any money from it.

I have tons of other domains, but it’ll hurt letting this one go. Should I give up on any hope of keeping it?

Even if I could somehow get donations to keep it alive this year, I’d just lose it next year. I don’t have thousands to spend on it each year. I’m so sad about this.

  • Zachariah@lemmy.worldOP
    4·
    6 days ago

    I wrote above that I tried a transfer, but it doesn’t seem to fix anything.

    It seems like Gandi is pointing their finger at the TLD operator https://www.nic.mu/ as the source of the blame. It’s such bullshit if there’s no appeals process. I have two more domains with Gandi, and I’ll definitely be moving them since their help with this issue is insulting. The length of the registration and the 32x price increase in one year should have warranted a lot more care.

    It’s so fucked up that there aren’t rules about this. Any TLD operator can just essentially pull the plug on a domain whenever it wants.