Actually, when they renew it, they add a full year on to the current expiration date, they don't just set the expiration date a year from the date they billed you. I think all registrars add full years to the current expiration date. So you could say they "steal" one month of interest that money might have earned you, but they're not stealing a month of registration, you're still getting 12 months of registration for your money.
And there's a good reason - if they did it on the last day, and your credit card was declined, they could throw it into ICANN's redemption period, then they charge you $350 or something absurd to get it back out. By doing it a month in advance, even if you're on a two week holiday, when you get back you'll notice their warning messages saying they can't bill you, and you can take care of it.
I'm pretty sure they just tack on the year renewal to the end of expiration.
If your expiry is 10-25-04 and they renew on 9-25-04, your new expiration will be 10-25-05.
It's a good thing
One of my domains with dotster is set to expire on nov 4th (according to whois records). On Sept. 20th I got an email that it will expire in 45 days. Auto renew with them is right before it expires, not a month early..
Apparently it's different with different registrars
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