Once a year »Domain Registry of America« (DROA) which also shows up as Domain Registry of Europe (DROE) and Canada (DROC), sends audacious commercial emails in which owners of .com-, .net- und .org domains are made to feel insecure and forced to upscale provider changes.
DROA refer in its emails to the impending expiration of the registration contract and, at the same time, names the precise web addresses of the domain owners. That is why it is time to react and transfer the domain. If the contract is not extended in due time, the address may be lost. But those who agree to transfer the domain, do not only agree to the transfer but also to comparably higher fees than at the previous registrar. Other DROA emails are expressed such that the domain owner thinks that he/she is not really the owner of the domain as yet and has to issue a statement which often emerges as a statement for an agreed change of provider. In other cases, in order to check the domain transfer and the contract extension, the owner is asked for his email address. If the adequate link is clicked on by the email recipient, he/she immediately confirms the provider transfer of his domain.
The last case of DROA or DROE spam occurred in the middle of the past year, after the first mails had been sent as early as in February 2003 and in the autumn 2002. These caused a lot of trouble. DROE/DROA had already been warned by the British ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) in October 2002 about sending commercial emails which look like invoices to domain owners. Similar rip-off tricks are also known to be used by companies such as Domain Registry of Canada DROC)and Domain Support Group.
As long as it is not explicitly a letter from your registrar, you can very well throw this kind of mail into your waste basket, since registration contracts are automatically extended if there is no written cancellation. Your domain names are secure, that is for sure!