Preventing domain expiration

Internet users have an equally pervasive — and oddly similar — problem: accidental Internet domain expiration. Your Linux user group or other nonprofit group (or, hey, even your company) is relying on some vaguely defined chain of command to make sure the domain keeps getting renewed, making the assumption everything’s fine as long as no disaster has yet happened (which tactic is called “management by exception” in business school — usually just before they cue the ominous music). Somebody drops the ball, the domain everyone’s relying on expires when nobody’s looking, and when the dust settles you find that a domain squatter’s grabbed it. Yes, there are companies that make domain snatching their core business. They do well at it, too. Too well for my taste.