Ask HN: Any options to keep .AF domain names?

by wanghqon 4/23/2023, 3:58 PMwith 7 comments

Got below email from my domain provider. Any possible options to keep my .AF domain, e.g. transferring to other registrars?

    Dear customer,

    Due to the ongoing economic sanctions in Afghanistan, AFGNIC, the .AF Registry, has informed us that they are currently unable to accept payments from non-Afghani registrars. 

    

    As a result, we cannot guarantee the renewal of your .AF, .COM.AF, .NET.AF, or .ORG.AF domain name/s at the present time.

    

    We are in continuous contact with the .AF Registry and are exploring potential solutions to this issue. If the .AF Registry is still unable to accept payments from our Registrar when we attempt to renew your domain, the renewal will fail and your payment will be refunded. We will update you if there are any changes to this status.

    

    If the renewal of your .AF domain name/s is critical for your business we encourage you to seek alternative options. We apologise for the inconvenience caused.

    

    Regards,

    Instra

by toast0on 4/24/2023, 12:23 AM

The answer is clear from this sentance:

> Due to the ongoing economic sanctions in Afghanistan, AFGNIC, the .AF Registry, has informed us that they are currently unable to accept payments from non-Afghani registrars.

You need to contract with an Afghani registrar. But that may be difficult due to ongoing economic sanctions (which I'm not familiar with the details of).

If you can figure how to pay, it seems like it would be worthwhile to pay for as many years as possible, since it may be difficult to pay in the future. However, you should also be aware that there's likely no guarantee of future service, and you probably don't have a good chance of legal process.

In other words, sketchy.af. Good luck, and have a backup domain.

by KomoDon 4/23/2023, 4:56 PM

Which domain registrar was this? You could try transferring the domain to another registrar within Afghanistan, something like afghanhost.af, which accepts crypto, otherwise I don't really see any other options.

by simantelon 4/24/2023, 5:05 PM

I've used 101domain for these sorts of TLDs in the past - they offer a trustee service that can generally satisfy locality requirements.

by andrewfromxon 4/23/2023, 4:12 PM

wow, that's terrible AF!