I've always wondered how people could forget their domains. I get at least 7-8 reminders for my domains prior to their expiry, and that's even on domains set to auto-renew. It didn't occur to me it was a difference between European/US registrars.

Friends of me had it happen with web hosters, server housing and domain registrars. When they were just starting out and forgot to tell the provider to get the monies from their credit card, or whatever, they would just disconnect the server or park the domain. Happened a few times and is really annoying. I had assumed it to be a function of the far better giro system here in Europe, but since a few months I'm paying most things by regular credit card bookings instead of bank transfer, and it still works.

Maybe people just need to ask for and demand automated payment?

the fact that it happened twice I think is telling though. At that point they have only themselves to blame.

I don't know what you're doing with your U.S. servers but Network Solutions and GoDaddy both offer auto renewal by default and warn you when your domain is going to expire.

Is that a relatively recent feature addition? The last case of a server expiring is about two years back.

Godaddy has had automatic renewal (as long as your credit card is still valid, of course!) for at least 4-5 years, I believe.

This rubyonrails.org situation itself might actually provide a counter-point to Europe/US registrar comparison. It appears (indicated by whois + DHH comments) that the domain is probably registered through a reseller in denmark and the reseller is parking the domain.

Why doesn't the domain owner just regiter the domain out a few years? It's not that expensive and they could at least delay this kind of issue. I'd assume RoR isn't going anywhere for a few years.