Ethics of Domain Drop Auctions: TDNAM and NameJet called out Yesterday: Today We call out Tucows
Yesterday domainnamewire.com reported that employees of TDNAM.com and NameJet.com were allowed to bid on domains that were in their own company’s dropping auction service.
In the article, domainnamewire.com sited some discussions on NamePros about GoDaddy employees, including Adam Dicker, who runs Godaddy aftermarket service, bidding on and winning auctions from their own system.
Troubling for sure.
Today we are calling out Tucows.
Although Tucows in-house domain drop auction ended this week, some disturbing conduct of Tucows came to light.
We have participated in the Tucows in-House auction for over 2 years spending in the six figures each year.
On Thursday we received notice from Tucows that 23 domains that we had won at their auction had been redeemed by their owner. Under the Tucows auction, domains were auctioned after they expired but the registrant was given 70 days to redeem the domains back. In the event the domain owner did redeem the domain back then winner of the auction was refunded his bid and the domain went back to the domain owner. But 23 names all in one day. We were suspicious.
Upon further investigation we learned that all 23 names that got take back from us, were owned by Tucows itself.
So it seems that Tucows ran the domain drop auction and the domains in this case were Tucows owned domains.
Again a major conflict of interest
Troubling.
A registry with its own auction platform has a fiduciary relationship to the domain holders and to the bidders.
Going back to my law school days it was instilled in me that not only could I not engage in any unethical or illegal activity, but that I must at all times avoid the “appearance of impropriety”.
Why?
Because once you place yourself in a situation where your motivations and actions can be questioned, they can and will be.
The motives of TDNAM employees were questioned yesterday in the NamePro’s forum.
Do these employee’s have insider information? Do they pay full price or do they receive an employee discount which would enable them to receive the domain for less than you or I. Are the employees of the domain drop auction company’s responsible for increasing the amount of the bids by bidding?
All are fair questions.
Did Tucows make a mistake and release domain into an auction that they owned and let expire?
Maybe.
Maybe not.
In a letter we wrote to Tucows on Thursday, we pointed out that when someone owns a domain and the auction platform it is sold on, there are certain abuses the domain/auction owner could engage in.
For example the domain/auction owner could proxy bid the domain up. The worst thing that can happen is the domain/auction owner winds up with the domain back. They could keep the domain or let it drop the following year back into the auction platform knowing what bid the domain bought the previous year. The best thing that could happen is that the price of the auction gets driven up and the domain is sold for much more than it would have.
Another, stronger possibility is that a domain gets placed in the drop auction by the domain/auction owner. If the domain sells for a price the domain/auction owner is satisfied with, the domain sale is allowed to go through, if the price is not sufficient, the domain/auction owner reclaims it. Once again it’s a no-lose situation for the domain/auction owner.
Of course we are not saying this is what Tucows did. We cannot know their motives.
That is the problem.
That is where the appearance of impropriety comes into play.
Just like none of us can say for sure what effect permitting employees of an auction house to bid on domains in their auction actually has, when put yourself in a situation where these questions can be asked, it places the credibility of the whole auction system in doubt.
We have no idea of how many other domain auction sales were reversed by Tucows, when they redeemed their own domains, but it would be silly to think that we were the only victim of this situation.
We would urge anyone who participated in the Tucows drop auction who had a domain taken back in the last week or two to see who now owns the domain, and if it’s Tucows we would love to hear about it.
We suggested to Tucows, even if they made an honest mistake and placed their own names in auction they should honor the sales to keep the integrity of the auction platform intact.
In response to our concerns, Tucows basically answered that they, as the domain owner had the right to redeem their domains, like any other domain owner.
Of course this is not a satisfactory resolution.
They are not like any other domain owner.
Matter of fact they are like no other domain owner, they own the auction.
However in all fairness to make up for the issue they did offer to buy me a drink at the next show.
Well, I can buy my own fucking drinks.
I don’t need a domain drop auction house to buy me a drink.
I do need them to run an auction is a fair manner and above reproach.
So here we are.
Left questioning the ethics of domain drop auction houses that we all spend a ton of money at.
What can be done?
Well as domainers we can vote with our wallets.
If they are going to play games, they can play with themselves (Pun Intended)
I for one will never bid on a Tucow expired domain again. (now moved to Afternic)
I will keep my money in my pocket.
The six figures we spent a year is history.
Not only will they miss our winning bids but our participation.
By participating in these auction we all increase the final sales price. Without our participation over the years, hundreds of thousands more dollars were generated on domains we bid on, but were outbid on.
If we as a group stopped bidding for just one week at these domain auctions these guys would have to listen to us, rather than ignore us.
After all we are their customers and their revenue source.
If we all just took a little time off, they wouldn’t get away with it.
Ask yourself this question, if all the loss of our business meant to them was the price of a drink, what is your business worth to them?
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Domain Embarking is still trying to figure out why Google pulled their plug and will probably end up resolving the issue. For some reason my networked sites weren’t affected – only the domains in my “house” account.
I have to tell everyone that although it was a scramble to set up new affiliate accounts with Chitika, Azoogle etc… and to paste all that ad code on a thousand sites, I know it will pay off! The great thing about change is that it forces you to move (well, in this case I am still literally at my laptop..) and try something different.
I found some great ads that are perfect for some niche sites of mine and when I get those clicks they will pay out far more than Adsense. For example, there is this site called WealthyMen.com, a dating service, that pays you $30 everytime someone fills out a subscription form! In this economy who won’t be signing up?
There are a ton of alternatives to Adsense and just parking your domains. These changes are just forcing us to do what we know we needed to do anyway.
With summer here there are tons of High School and College kids looking for some part time work. They “get” the net like I never will. Most of them have learned how to create sites in Communication Arts class in Middle School. I am obviously not talking about “Castello Sites”- just some basic stuff. It’s easy to add some affiliate ads and an ebay or Chitika store as well. Add an RSS feed on topic and call it a day.
Or go to http://www.DomainEmbarking.com and see what they are offering. No harm trying it out with a domain or two.
why is Snapnames getting a pass? The statement they made says employees cannot bid.
WHAT ABOUT EXCLUSIVE REGISTRAR PARTNERS? REGISTER.COM feeds all their names to snapnames – you think they don’t shill bid or buy their own names? well guess what they do it.
they absolutely warehouse and it can BE PROVEN BY THE DNS RECORDS.
i have personally seen prerelease domains removed from prerelease status only to suddenly have the WHOIS masked and the DNS redirected to their dedicated Skenzo DNS servers.
Jerzz
So your saying snapnames got domains that register.com was the register of with them going to auction or not going to auction??
Also you saying once the acquired these domains they used skenzo to park them and not domain sponsor???
Can you give me some examples?
man.. I love reading your blog, and the comments. Please keep up the great job.
Subash
Thanks
This is insane. I had 5 names pulled back that I won according to the platform rules.
Tucows this needs to be rectified!
There is much that can be added to this very ugly situation but a few words sum it up.
Did anyone really think that these drop companies/Registrars would play fairly with all the money at stake in the names that drop? Why would they settle for a crumbs when they can have the whole pie. It’s also nothing new for them to pick the cream of the crop … they are just getting lazy and careless about it.
Tucows in this case should “eat crow” and return those names it took back from auction winners that are now in their corporate portfolio. There is no one that should waste their time in their auctions until they show some good business sense. Same goes for the rest … Adam is a nice enough guy but that doesn’t excuse him doing what he did there is no doubt lots of insider info and tactics going on.
They all just think they have us over a barrel … well, are we
over a barrel? Do we have to just accept this crap? People need to do as Mike said and just stop bidding on names until they put a spine in place.
Mike,
You must have put a lot of time into the research and bidding and then winning 23 names I think the worst part is YOU are paying for Tucows mistake and they are walking away scott free. You take the hit, they don’t and they don’t offer anything?? TERRIBLE outcome! What a CRAPPY decision and Tucows needs to fix it and domainers need to support YOU and let Tucows and everyone else know this is NOT the way to do business. Domainers do business on a handshake and this flies in the face of everything we stand for.
Rick
This situation is continuing on the Afternic Platform.
Dotweekly.com has written several times about Tucows domains that he had backordered on the Afternic system that got pulled or just disappeared from his watch list.
His point matched yours, what a waste of time.
He spend hours researching these domains (he reported on 40) only to find them out of the system after backorders were placed.
Tucows answer is that “the auction had not started yet, they were just backorders”
So the game has no shifted from a lets auction them off and see what they get and if they don’t get enough we take them back, to one where they may count the number of backorders and then pull names back based on that before the auction starts
Here is one of his posts:
http://www.dotweekly.com/2008/06/21/tucowsafternic-simply-dropped-the-ball/
Tucows always has an excuse.
But whatever the excuse they seem not to care how much time domainers spend spinning their wheels.
If they don’t give a crap about us, I certainly don’t care about them or their expired domains.
Like I said if they are going to play games they can play with themselves.
I always knew that it would be conflict of interest when registrars became domainers too.
It’s like the drug dealer becoming a user too.
He starts to “cut” the product, selling off the diluted stuff and keeping high quality for himself.
Registrars have become domain junkies, like us
It’s inevitable that everyone who comes into this business gets hooked.
The profit margins are too high to ignore, and greed is too hard to resist.
But I still love domains!
Biggie
We allowed it to happen.
Domainers never should have allowed registrars to also become domainers and then should not have allowed them to become auction houses.
They have take every liberty that we have allowed them to and financial supported them ever step of the way.
With regards to Tucows it is especially disturbing since it is well know that they go through their expired domain list before they place names into the auction system.
Once they hit the auction system and sell they still don’t honor the sale and still pull domains back in that they had a chance not to put through the system in the first place.
The system is so abusive and unfair and getting worse, because domainers are still spending their guts out on these auctions.
As I said if we all took a couple of weeks off, did not support these auction, we could put some rules and fairness back into the system.
I hate that domainers are so willing just to accept the crap that they do.
This rotten egg decision will come back and bite them in the ass. Their deaf ear will be their downfall. Every day this passes and is unresolved is a day that this outrageous CRAP will spread throughout the domain community. I would urge others to blog about this. Hold their feet to the fire and do business the RIGHT way. I have much more to say because it is up to domainers to speak out and do business with credible sources. It is time to turn the tide in OUR favor. Without US they are nothing. Time to show them what the consequences are for pulling this CRAP.
I always respected Tucows as a company. But doing this type business is making me change my mind. Now it is the job of every domainer to make sure this is widely known and have them clean up this mess that THEY CREATED.
Don’t mean to draw any attention out of your conversation, but just want to clarify with NameJet. They apparently allow employees to buy domains if no one else bids on them. Here’s their full story:
http://domainnamewire.com/2008/06/23/sedo-and-pool-explain-employee-policies-for-bidding/
…along with Pool’s and Sedo’s policies. Again, not trying to pull away from this so feel free to repost my article on Pool and Sedo in its entirety if you want.
-Andrew
I wonder how much of this problem goes back to fact of Tucows warehousing domains? (imo) or as Bill Sweetman states about expired domains at Tucows “some of the names are retained by Tucows for our own portfolio”.
I think in no way, shape or form should a registrar be able to obtain a domain without offering it publicly first in a standard auction Period! The auction should also be held by a 3rd party independent service so no conflict of interest is present.
My orginal post was about expired 4 letter domains and Tucows Not Showing them on their auction platform. Bill Sweetman placed the above comment (“some of the names are retained by Tucows for our own portfolio”.) in the #3 comment and a follow up in comment #5. You can read it all here: http://www.dotweekly.com/2008/04/16/tucows-holding-back-expired-4-letter-coms/#more-222
Andrew
No problem let it all come to light, we as domainers having been playing in the dark for far too long
Jamie
The warehousing of expired names by Tucows was reported a while back.
This is another issue separate from the way they conduct their auction and aftermarket sales.
I agree with you. A registrar should not be allowed to take the cream off the top, but the industry has allowed it.
If no one brings it to light, and if domainers continue to support the auctions with their dollars, then we can only expect the abuses to get worse.
In this case not only does Tucows pick names off before allowing them to go to auction, if they let the domain go to auction and someone buys it, they can, and do, turn around and still take the name back for their own account.
All I know to do is:
1. Expose these practices where I see them
2. Stop paricipating and thereby stop supporting these company’s auctions.
3. Spread the word.
once again, if we can as a industry stop bidding just for a while we can stop the abuse.
For me I swear to god I will never buy participate in another Tucows auction.
They can kiss my money goodbye.
And they will miss it
It is a “slightly” different issue to what Jamie mentions but if ICANN had some balls and made a strong policy (instead of just implying) that domain registrars cannot warehouse or speculate in domains then you would’nt be in the position you’re currently in.
From what I can tell this is why they all behave like they own the domains, because they legally can..its a huge loophole.
The damage was done ages ago, ICANN is responsible for it all – Allowing registrars to own the domains is like letting an alcoholic look after you pub ! I am very surprised this can’t be stopped as it is an obvious conflict of interest issue IMO
No wonder ICANN want to move out of USA, they probably know they’re going to get sued to hell one day.
In your case Tucows should have the decency to give you the names you won, plain and simple IMO – Just like Afternic did recently.
If they don’t then it just shows they have no morals whatsoever.
The more I read the more I think this industry is like a big can of worms.
Good luck with it.
Unbelievable. Until domainers start taking their money off the table and doing something themselves to generate income instead of relying solely on the lazy ways of ppc, they will continue to get screwed.
Well done Mike on your excellent research into this issue and for having the balls to stand up and be counted.
The problem with our industrym is that we are all so isolated within our own environments.
The competetive nature of the business, with so much distrust of other domainers, makes it relatively easy for the big guy to come along acting like the saviour by handing us money and opportunity in one hand, while his other hand is in our pockets stealing our wallets.
Doesn’t Rick Shwartz bid on domains at his auctions? Doesn’t Rick Shwartz get a cut on the domain names sold at his auctions. Another case of the old domainer double standard
Hey,
Bill Sweetman has written about this over at the Tucows blog today.
http://about.tucows.com/2008/06/25/domain-auction-ethics-the-tucows-response/
Willie – I believe Rick’s bidding is done by him in person, which is more transparent than people bidding with anonymous identities.
James
Thanks for the heads up.
Going to start a new post based on Mr. Sweetman’s reply.
Willie
A completely different animal.
The auction at TRAFFIC is conducted by Moniker.
Rick is not an employee of Moniker or an officer, director or shareholder.
Rick is a part owner of the TRAFFIC show but the auction is operated by a different company.
Moreover this is not a drop auction.
There is no special inside knowledge of what domains are dropping, what traffic they may or may not have, as all this disclosed by the owner of the domain or not disclosed by the owner. If the info is disclosed, Moniker puts the info out.
The list of domains to be auctioned is well publicized in advance, no secret as to which names are up for auction.
Finally as Elliot said quite accurately Rick bids are placed by him in the light of day with everone watching.
I usually sit in the back with him (you’ll find Rick in the last row and myself right in front of him) and I can tell you he bids on very few names and only bid with the intention of winning the auction for the domain he is interested in (which he usually does).
All can see what he bids on and what he does not.
Willie,
I’ll add a very important point here.
The way TUCOWS is presently operating they scan the list of names before anybody else gets to see them. Then they pull out the ones they believe have value.
Then the names they either missed or weren’t sure of the value they send out for auction.
Now, the part that really sucks, Mike (and others)comes along and put time and energy into researching which names he wants to bid on and what his maximum buy price is.
The names sell for way more than any of TUCOWS “domain experts” can figure they would.
Now, They just take them back!
They USE the domainers that actually have a clue as to the value propisition of these names.
Are you kidding me???
This is theft of this mans time, his knowledge, experience, etc…
This company is unconscionable!!!
I swear I will never do business with them!
That now makes 2 domainers…
We need others to stand up and support Mike and the others that got screwed here!
Koz
I’m glad to see someone being outspoken and indignant about registrar and auction house abuses/practices. I’ve been writing about these types of activities for several years in the domain forums. ICANN, who have the authority and obligation to scrutize a host of registrars (Accredited by ICANN), have historically taken little to no action on questionable registrar activities. And without any risk of retribution, things like Michael has written about will continue to go on.
It”s only the tip of the iceberg too. When you evaluate the totality of registrar integrity within the domin industry, it is and has been very low. Registrars became their own customers long ago, and have strategically pushed the limit for years. Again, with no oversight from ICANN, it will go on ad infinitum.
Admin: YES – register.com feeds all expired domain names into Snapnames. This was widely publicized.
Register.com parks with skenzo for “coming soon”, “expired” and house-owned names they keep instead of letting go to snapnames.
Expired name example parked on skenzo: drowned.org (as of 10:30pm EST June 25, 2008
I can prove more if you want with publibly available information.
Want to see their house portfolio? check what this nameserver hosts: ns1.bnmq.com
enjoy.
Jerz
Yes I know that register.com feeds all their expired names into snapnames
Now are you saying that some of these domains wind up owned by oversee or snapnames and never go to auction, or are you saying something else
sorry for any confusion.. i am saying register.com skims the cream off the top. they warehouse names.
Expired names will either be auctioned on snapnames, warehoused and parked, or deleted.
Additionally, there are many occasions where the name is listed on snapnames and then snatched back up and suddenly no longer available. You then see the name parked on a skenzo page and whois masked.
I have an example (if someone wants to investigate further history if that is at all possible)- 321kidchat.com
I had a prerelease bid and then close to the release date it got snatched up into a register.com house account with a skenzo page.
I spent my time and money researching the domain name and saw significant traffic via compete.com on that one. It was recently re-released by register.com because they forgot to renew it again (no management over there in their domainer department – asleep at the wheel). I noticed this because i left it in my snapnames queue and suddenly a year later it was in auction.
I complained to snapnames about this and they blew me off. I can find the support ticket from a year or so ago when I reported this to them if anyone wants it.
The names wind up in a house account with WHOIS masking. I would like to see the same level of outrage against register.com and see them held accountable.
These registrars can act like street thugs and two bit crooked hucksters because ICANN is asleep at the wheel.
The current staff at ICANN are lazy and incompetent. Is there a script where I can sign my name and phone number and email the main decision making incompetents at ICANN?
If the several thousand emails sent to the lazy incompetents at ICANN doesn’t work, the next step would be to email each persons congressman.
qwerty
ICANN is like any “governmental” body.
Spends it time looking for ways to increase its revenue and only acts if a huge stink is made and the smell gets all the way to Washington.
They certainly are not going to be proactive.
Meaning they will only move (and them very slowly) unless they have to.
They are not going to look for problems.
Someone is going to have to point out the problems rally support for change and get momentum going on it, so they have to act.
Want proof.
One word
Registerfly
What happened there?
A bunch of customer complained, but it was not until domains had been lost confusion and stink was made, and the media got a hold of it, before ICANN made a move.
Mr. Menius
Nice to have you over here
Of course you are spot on.
ICANN as I stated above has no interest in seeking out of dealing with these issues.
It makes them no additional funds and they have taken a completely hands off approach.
Its the wild west out there.
and with hundreds of new extensions its about to get even wilder
well let’s get a script going to contact each person congressman. I’m not much of a programmer otherwise I’d volunteer to do it. Election time is few months away in the US and most domainers are Americans. A few phone calls to ICANN from congressional staffers should get the lazy incompetents off their behinds.
But your note on ICANN being a mess just like any other bureaucracy is a point well taken. The SEC took a “hands-off” approach to the mortgage derivatives problem on wall street and look where we are. The economy slows down and is about to drop off into a long recession because of lazy SEC personnel.
As far as this growing Domain mess goes, a bigger investigative piece would be to find out if any ICANN personnel is personally benefiting from this mess. I’m not suggesting that they are, all I’m saying is why else would they let things keep go from bad to worse to outright fraud. In a few cases, the personal and business friendships between the executives of these registrars and ICANN personnel run pretty deep.
Deleting a registered domain from a registrants account to put back into the registrars piggy jar is outright fraud in my book. With internet forensics, tracing what happened is a 5 minute job. Unless records are deleted, then of course that becomes a criminal offense. If ICANN doesn’t do anything, any court will take cases such as these.
Here is one of the main issues why ICANN will never do anything on this…
Who goes to ICANN meetings? Executives and other employees of registrars – NOT the public.
All registrars are benefiting from keeping their mouths shut.
They have a gentleman’s agreement not to bring up issues to ICANN, and instead resolve them amongst themselves to keep these shady dealings under the radar. This is first-hand knowledge, not just speculation.
LETS SPEAK OUT AND PUT THESE CROOKS OUT OF BUSINESS.
i can start naming names at the registrars if need be!
Register, Tucows, Enom – you know who you are (anyone who just returned from Paris from the latest ICANN boondoggle I AM TALKING TO YOU – WE ARE FED UP WITH THE SHENANIGANS).
LETS TURN UP THE HEAT ON THESE SCUM.
It seems that the whole domainer industry is still very much in the Wild West stage. The perception of bidding in a rigged auction is going to hit a lot of these auctioneers. With economies moving towards recession, bidders may think twice before bidding now.
John
We should be well past this stage.
Domain auction have been going on for years now so any “issues” should have been resolved a while ago.
We have to demand fairness from all aspects of this business
The Board of Advisors of WADND.com are now officially considering rescinding the “Seal of Approval” awarded to Tucows. I will post results when available. Probably in the next day or two if not sooner.
What Tucows did regarding these 23 names is reprehensible. However, the real crime, as others have pointed out, is the warehousing of expired domains by Tucows and every other registrar. That Sweetman so non-chalantly admits this is sickening.
Rick
Lets not forget the other 24 domainers this happened to.
It just didn’t happen to me.
There were a total of 25 customers of Tucows who had a total of 260 domains taken back after the had won the respective 260 auctions.
You should comment at Icann about the registrar conduct.
You can read my comment and others at:
http://forum.icann.org/lists/raa-consultation/
Mr. Schwartz
Very sad for Tucows.
To see them throw away so many years of hard work that it took to get that seal, is just beyond my level of comprehension
Definitely, MHB.
The problem is that the domainer industry changes so fast that the regulatory side seems to be playing catch-up all the time. The danger for the industry is that the actions of these warehousing registrars may encourage tougher regulation.
Perhaps the registrar business has become so competitive that the revenue from warehousing allows registrars to maintain relatively low registration prices. However the activities of these warehousing registrars is tantamount to customer cannibalism. It relies on a continuous feed of new, unsuspecting, registrants who will let their domains lapse. The best way to deal with this is to highlight the issue. The domainers and the ordinary registrants are the people who need to know.
John
Moniker doesn’t do it and they seem to be making plenty.
It was a corporate decision looks at what they said about it in their own words:
“”
“Our strategy to acquire expiring domain names differs from that of some other large Registrars who have focused on domain name auctions. Tucows
believes that there is substantial value in holding on to these domain names, both in terms of monetization through pay-per-click advertising, but also in terms of the resale or lease of high-value domains to individuals and businesses that understand the intrinsic value of a high-quality domain names.”
Bill Sweetman — never met the man, but TUCOWS must of hired him for the syrup that oozed out of his mouth when his company gets caught in unethical behavior. I fell for it. I admit it. And so did Adam Strong, and Adam is more cynical than I am!
The links… http://www.successclick.com/tucows-reveals-they-have-domains-holy-double-cow-crap_2008_02_27/
Bill Sweetman’s response: http://www.successclick.com/tucows-bill-sweetman-responds-gets-strong-support_2008_02_27/
read these articles, and the comments, and see for your self how Tucows GM, Billy “SugarLips” Sweetman answered my discovery of Tucows shenanigans.
And yes, I gave him the benefit of the doubt, but seeing his same “creamy” comments in this new scandal, I have no faith in Tucows whatsoever.
This is a fight, people. There is big money involved, and those who have power will corrupt, and yes, those who have absolute power will corrupt absolutely.
Stephen Douglas
http://www.successclick.com
This is a little saddning for a new domainer like myself. I have lost domains from TDNAM before only to scratch my head. This explains it in more detailed.
Patrick
I think it is a time to create an organization or a group of domainers similar to UNISON.
This way we can keep unathecal auctioners, domain registrers etc out of business.
Furkat
Furkat
Its not a bad idea although this is what the ICA is suppose to be.
However you can certainly write to ICANN by posting a comment on their board (see posts on it)
I want to makes sure I understand what you said Tucows did
Forget about the “appearance of impropriety” for a second.
The company was both the owner and the auctioning site as Tucows was. And you bid on a site. Are charged for the transaction. And then on the last day it is redeemed. You are refunded 60-70 days from the original transaction.
The company was able to float the cash for that period (which on 23 isn’t a big deal, but if this is a common practice the interest can add up). And if they are actually reporting it as revenue when received, using it as collatoral or for equity, only to return it later.
Then that just reeks audit.
If I am misstating please explain what I misunderstood.
NewToDomains
Basically you are correct.
However there were a total of 260 domains that 25 different domainers this happened to, not just me.
As far as “floating the cash” it would only impact the books if it moved it from one quarter to the next
As far as floating
Is Tucows still partnered with and auctioning through Afternic or not? I thought I read somewhere that they stopped but I don’t see it in all these comments.
I’m watching a Tucows domain, 40 days expired, that just went into –
Status:HOLD
Status:AUTORENEWPERIOD
Status:PENDING DELETE RESTORABLE
What’s my best couse? Wait and try for it through snapnames and pool? Or try afternic. It sounds like it may be too late to use afternic. It also sounds like the concensus is to NOT use afternic.
Thanks.
Dean
Yes as far as we know they are still using Afternic but don’t forget they can always take a name for themselves and not allow it to drop.
As you know from reading my blog I have vowed to never bid on another Tucows sponsored auction so I do not follow it regularly, however Jamie does on his blog and had a post this week about it.
http://www.dotweekly.com/2008/08/14/tucowsafternic-partnership-make-a-difference/
Thank you for your reply. I’m glad to hear the boycott is cutting down on Afternic’s business.
This topic only adds to my already suspicious, paranoid attitude towards discussing domain issues openly, due to not wanting to give away too much information to the competition. I’m glad to have discovered your site and your friends’ sites, because I now see how important it is for us domainers to join together and work for our common good.
One more, remedial question:
The domain I want expired about 40 days ago. It’s status is:
Status:HOLD
Status:AUTORENEWPERIOD
Status:PENDING DELETE RESTORABLE
It does not show up on afternic search results, that I tried. Does ‘pending delete restorable’ mean it’s already dropped from Afternic’s control, and that the name is only available through snapnames and pool?
(I hate to admit this, but I *really* want the name, and it’s hard to resist the temptation to backorder through Afternic. But I’m afraid to draw Afternic’s attention to the fact that I want the domain, so it seems better to wait until it’s released to a completely open, public drop. Rather than preorder, I could watch afternic’s auctions to see if the name goes to live auction, but I hate to even search for the domain on their site in case they study their search queries — as I said, paranoid.)