inessential by Brent Simmons

Transferring Domains - Day 8

I wonder why the wait. Both domain transfers are listed by Hover as waiting for Network Solutions to approve.

What takes so long?

I have three theories:

  1. It just plain takes a while to process requests like this.

  2. For security reasons, Network Solutions doesn’t want to make it too easy to transfer domains. This delay gives someone the chance to stop it before it completes.

  3. For business reasons, Network Solutions doesn’t want to make it too easy to transfer domains. Knowing that there’s a delay will have a negative effect on people’s willingness to start a transfer.

I don’t believe #1, because I don’t think it’s that difficult. It’s probably automated, or largely automated. And if there’s a backlog they could add resources to it. But this waiting period appears to be a standard, well-known thing.

So I think it’s #2 or #3.

It could be #3 and the company could claim #2, I’m aware. There’s a semi-plausible explanation at hand.