If you own a .ca domain you may have received a letter in the mail like so that came from the Domain Registry of Canada:

My advice? Toss it in the garbage (unless of course you use them for your domain registration).

Typically if you don’t select a ‘privacy’ setting when creating your .ca domain, they will obtain your home address which is available to the public and will send you a rather official looking letter informing you that your domain’s going to expire. They will suggest you need to renew immediately and failure to do so will “result in a loss of your online identity”. While this is true, if you already own a domain there are good chances it’s not with them and they’re simply trying to move you over to their service at a premium rate.

As an example here are the prices to register a .ca domain to a 1 year agreement (prices quoted as of August 28, 2010):

$40cdn/year – Domain Registry of Canada

$12.95/year – Domains at Cost

$13.73/year – Go Daddy

Some people define this business to be performing what’s called Domain Slamming, a form of scam in which (in this case) a domain registrar attempts to trick customers into switching to their service. Upon a little further digging I came across a few pointers that support some of the issues:

• Red flag 1: Nothing sells a domain like a cheesy sales person stock photo and a dispute policy.
• Red flag 2: Google
• Red flag 3: F is for Fun

So really it’s up to you. If you want to pay potentially $20-$30cdn more per year and go through the hassle of having to switch your domain then by all means. But I would suggest staying with who you signed up with and save a few dollars while doing so.