Tucows President Responds to Our Post About YummyNames.com
Elliot Noss, the President and CEO of Tucows has responded to our post of a few days ago regarding the YummyNames.com, the site Tucows set up to sell some of the domains it acquired from it’s customers after they expired.
The comments from Mr. Noss are unedited.
Our comments will follow but feel free to comment:
“”"”"I wanted to weigh in here and provide my view very specifically. apologies in advance as I am famously long-winded (stop laughing berryhill)
first. what do we do? we have been very open in what we are doing, what our grace periods are and how we implement them. we have been open about it since we started in 2006. we review names for brandability and revenue potential. we provide, if I am not mistaken, the longest grace periods in the industry and, again I believe, are perhaps the only registrar to honor redemption grace period on names other than as dictated to us by the auction providers. I would note here that in negotiating with the auction providers (and we have spoken to all of them) they are clear that they are not interested in us allowing an auction to be subject to a grace period for the benefit of the original registrant.
after the grace periods we retain names in our discretion. what we do not choose to retain (I believe this to be over 98%) goes to auction. what does not go to auction is dropped.
I would note that our grace periods and our specific practices are clear and available. we do not play hide the peanut. we do not have sister companies that take ownership. we understand many other registrars are a little more opaque in their practices.
second, in my view there are only two differences in what we are doing and what a registrar who has all their names flow into auction is doing. before the differences though, the more important point, as many of you have noted, is the similarity, that the registrar is capturing the excess economic value.
the two differences are timing and path. in terms of timing, a registrar who sends to auction sells the name to a wholesaler who will then either keep it in a large portfolio for revenue or wait for the best-use end user to buy it. most often both are true. the registrar gets money immediately at what will usually be a lower level than if sold to an end user directly. the registrar trades money for timing and certainty. by the way, after doing this for three years what we are doing may or may not be better.
the other difference is path. in an auction the domain most often flows through a domainer before reaching an end user and will sit in a domainer portfolio collecting revenue in the interim (or not), just like it sits in our portfolio.
third, I think it is instructive to look at the history of the drop. there have been three clear phases, the wild west, the primacy of the auctions and the last couple years.
in the wild west guys like scott day, gary chernoff and frank schilling flourished and those who knew the secret handshake benefited.
in the primacy of the auctions guys like rob hall, paul stahura and clint page flourished and there was a higher degree of standardization, but not if you were the registry (who got hammered) or ICANN (who were inundated with hundreds of “registrar” applications from the same entities in an orwellian arms race).
the situation of the last few years is a further evolution with the markets becoming more efficient.
the one thing I will guarantee going forward is that the market for secondary domain names will continue to evolve and will continue to evolve towards efficiency. I will also note that in rapidly evolving markets smart entrepreneurs skate to where the puck is going. when the market evolved from stage one to stage two scott, gary and frank did not whine and complain, they figured out how to thrive in the next phase. when it evolved from stage two to stage three, rob, paul and clint did not whine and complain. they figured out how to thrive in the next phase. people who look back on how rapidly evolving markets were and try to legislate or wish them back in to existence are sort of like the music industry looking at the Internet.
an interesting historical note. we were one of the last registrars to get into taking advantage of expiring names. in 2004, before NSI launched their original snap names auction for their expiring names, I tried to get the registry and the large registrars to agree on a framework not unlike some of what was discussed above. in that framework I stressed the rights of the original registrant. I was met with derision from registrars and domainers, greed from the registry and apathy from registrants. it was only long after it was clear to me that I would be unable to effect change in that direction that we went down the path we did.
lastly, I think this whole issue is a sad distraction. registrars and domain owners (and we are both) have common cause in two respects, registrant rights and fighting against overreaching IP interests. Tucows has an unmatched record on these two issues. you did not see our names handed over to the state of kentucky.
we have spent more time, money and effort on transfers, whois and so many other registrant rights issues from the dawn of competition than any other registrar. both the ICA and the ALAC recognize that. we have spent more time and money fighting IP interests inside of ICANN and the courts of two countries (and of course in UDRPs) than any other registrar. we have the most generous grace periods, the fairest and most transparent transfer rules and, by the way, some of the VERY largest domain holders as customers.
I am more than happy to dig into this stuff deeper. I have no doubt many who are here disagree, but at least hopefully this will help us focus on what it is we disagree on.”"”"
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digg this article everyone – get some attention to the matter
http://digg.com/tech_news/What_happens_to_your_domain_name_when_it_expires
Mike Robertson
Just to be clear you send all of your expired domains to
NameJet.com
You do not retain any of them for your own account??
@ MHB… only domains that are owned by Dark Blue Sea (Fabulous/DomainActive) are being auctioned through NameJet.
Domains that third party owners choose to drop DO NOT go through the NameJet system.
Also, third party domains not renewed will be deleted, without exception.
Hope this clarifies things.
Mike
Fabulous.com
Elliot, Michael, Rick:
I think “Domainers” in the www industry make up about 90% of revenue/financial support for ICANN or Domain Registrars when they register domain names everyday and pay up annual charges left right and center, but they still dont get prioritized IMPORTANCE from ICA or ICANN or Registrars regarding these issues and ammendments of some sort.. I fail to understand why not??
Elliot: I think you mentioned that Divorced.com was acquired by paying up premium for your personal portfolio, correct?
Much Conflict of Interest cuz we are not sure what you gonna do to build up that personal portfolio and Suspicion arises here from your statement “regarding building up a PERSONAL PORTFOLIO” cuz you are also the President and CEO of Tucows where alot of people hold their names. Who knows you will practice fair trade policies and in right manner with ‘em domainers holding some valuable virtual real estate at tucows.com, will they ever receive that renewal reminder in time for a Gem??
And the worst part, taking a toll on the matter is you’ve also started a company under YummyNames.com where you are selling Expired/dropped generic premium names.. Did they really expire? Have you really paid up Premium for your personal portfolio?? I doubt it Sir!!
I smell the presence of Satan.. Tucows!! IMHO
Mike Robertson,
Thank you for the clarification. I apologize for my error.
I would also like to point out that not ALL registrars send their expired domains to auction or cherry pick them. Rebel.com also deletes all domains without exception.
YummyNames “catch” dates and pricing update:
I requested prices for a few domains from yummy names and did a little homework.
No need to reveal the names publicly but here’s what I found with help from DomainTools.com whois history feature.
Note ContactPrivacy.com is owned by Tucows.com. I am not sure that a change from whois information showing registrant to contactprivacy.com whois necessarily means that tucows took ownership of the name but one would be led to assume that this is the case.
Domain A: expiration date of October 15, 2006, nameservers changed to NS2.RENEWYOURNAME.NET reported on November 7, 2006. Next available entry shows Whois owner of record reported as Contactprivacy.com on March 2, 2007 and no other public whois entries available, all are privacy protected.
So, nameserver change about three weeks after expiration and ownership change about four and a half months later.
Asking price for Domain A $900. This is a crappy .net name.
Domain B: expiration date of December 28, 2006. Next entry in domaintools is February 4, 2007 to Contactprivacy.com. That’s only about five weeks. No other public whois entries available, all are privacy protected.
Asking price for Domain B $1200. This is a business related .com name but not worth a hand reg to most people.
Domain C: expiration date of March 11, 2008. nameservers changed to NS2.RENEWYOURNAME.NET reported on March 16, 2008. Next available entry shows Whois owner of record reported as Contactprivacy.com on April 22, 2008 and no other public whois entries available, all are privacy protected.
So, that’s about four weeks from expiration to contactprivacy.com change over. Pretty quick if you ask me.
Asking price for Domain C $20,000. This is a dictionary .com one word domain.
Tucows must be praying that their customers don’t renew if they are going to mark up domains to these ridiculous prices.
All I have to say, is way to go Fabulous.com and Rebel.com. That’s the way the system is supposed to operate and kudos to you for following the rules the way they were/are intended.
PS. I learned a long time ago that the only people with my best interests in mind…is myself.
Shaun,
Great way to put it. I also commend Fabulous and Rebel for their behavior to avoid the potential conflict of interest with customers associated with retaining customers’ domains after expiration.
@ Shaun
Fabulous has acknowledged that they are sending names to namejet for auction. I’m sorry Shaun, while you may have preferred the auction model over the Tucows one…..sending domain names to auction houses WAS NOT the way the system was intended to operate. Auctions were merely one of the satges leading to the overall corruption of the domain name system. In truth the way the system was intended to operate was that expiring names would drop into the pool of domain names available for anyone to register using any registrar they so chose. In fact, the auction system perverted that
Franklin,
That was me that incorrectly stated that Fabulous was sending domains to auction. Mike Robertson corrected me and said that only Dark Blue Sea owned domains – NOT customers’ domains – are sent to auction.
Jason
Thank you for that Information.
All domainer should take note of Rebel.com policy
UPDATE
Over 2,000 people have read the two posts on Tucows in the last few days
Tucows President Responds to Our Post: 1,332
Tucows Now Selling The Expired Domains: 786
Man, I vote this post and comments thread as the best ever for 2008. Everybody’s testosterone is blazing and the subject matter’s representative is slinging the cow manure like a fertilizer pump!!!!
First of all, I know for a fact that many top registrars do what Tucows does: Cherry pick through their customer’s expiring domains and select them for resale. BUT MOST OF THEM ALLOW THE CUSTOMER A LONGER PERIOD OF RECOVERY TIME, EVEN BEYOND THE EXPIRY AND RGP. And the registrar will honor the previous owner’s request because they know it looks bad for the registrar to claim a domain to resell it at a profit. However, TUCOWS didn’t follow this “crook’s code of honor” and now we have Elliot typing away so fast he can’t start his sentences with a capital letter.
The only registrars I know that DON’T pick off expiring domains of their customers are:
Fabulous.com
Moniker.com
Rebel.com
The rest are seeing dollar signs in a business where small margins are their standard (domain registration/renewals).
The only straight-shooting honest registrar you can’t even find a “conflict of interest” with is Rebel.com. Not that Fabulous and Moniker aren’t “honest”, but they have a vested interest in aftermarket domains. That’s not bad, but if you want to use a registrar based solely on “domainer trust” and want to avoid those possible conflicts, then use Rebel.com. They are dedicated to being JUST A REGISTRAR.
As far as the ICA, I agree with Michael that Rick never brought up any of these issues when he was on the board. However, Rick makes solid arguments here against Tucows, but attacking the ICA for “not acting” against slimeballs like Tucows is just plain wrong.
As far as Elliot’s sweet-talking, I received the same bullsh*t response from Bill Sweetman six months ago, and POSTED it on my blog, unfortunately giving him and Tucows the benefit of the doubt, but I blame that on Adam for making a comment on my blog that backed Sweetman up. (In fact, I blame everything bad that ever happened to me on my cousin Adam).
Seriously, many of you don’t realize that most of the domains Tucows is selling came from ITSYOURDOMAINS.COM registrar they bought last year. I’ve stated this fact with evidence on my blog in January.
What I call “registrar cherrypicking” is a great concern to all domainers. It’s important because the direct connection of the domainer to their total source of revenue is the registrar they use. The registrar is the domainer’s “doorway”. If domainers can’t get to the domains that are expiring because the registrar is cherrypicking them, or at least be fairly notified when their domains are expiring (and their whois info updated upon registration from a drop service), then the registrar is clearly using unfair business practices that should be, and I think can be, considered a tort.
Berryhill? Sturgeon? What say you?
stephen, I have been very clear about our grace periods AND said above that I believe we have the most generous of all large registrars and the most transparent.
if you think I am wrong please be specific. I have said what mine are. have others?
“The only registrars I know that DON’T pick off expiring domains of their customers are:
Fabulous.com
Moniker.com
Rebel.com”
Moniker has an “unpaid domain names department”. They priced a domain to me for $6000.
Moniker absolutely holds their customers domains and offers them for resale.
So, now I guess we are down to Fabulous and Rebel?
Elliot, if you really want to take the high road, cut the “generous” and “transparent” condescending platitudes and just let the damn domains drop like they are supposed to. What a concept, do what ICANN originally intended. But hey, just because Registrars like Fabulous.com and Rebel.com are doing it, what should you?
Stephen, if you “now for a fact that many top registrars do what Tucows does: Cherry pick through their customer’s expiring domains and select them for resale” name names! Show the facts you know.
Call them all out. Like Shaun says : What a concept, do what ICANN originally intended.
Stephen
I agree with Donna.
In Tucows case we know they engage in this practice with 100% certainty.
We had representatives of Fabulous and Rebel come here to say they do NOT engage in this practice.
Regarding your claim that all other registrars do what Tucows does, you are implicating HUNDREDS of other registrars, without giving any proof.
This is certainly not fair to these registrars.
How about shoppers.com which NSI dropped to NameJet.com and which sold for $170K I believe early last year.
I see some very good NSI domain drop all the time that I would certainly keep if I was cherry picking.
Plus point me to another registrar’s site where they are selling their retained expired domains, like yummynames.com
sadly, what you all are missing is that “what ICANN originally intended” was that names went back into the pool for registration by end users, not for portfolio holders. this is the circa 1998-9 view. please do not hear me espousing that view. I think it is as idyllic and unrealistic as much of what is is asked for above.
I said above, and I will say again, be careful what you ask for. what you will find is an environment EXTREMELY hostile to domain portfolio holders.
again, believe me or don’t, we are your friends not your enemies.
Elliot, please explain how what you do is an act of friendship? I am not against warehousing, auctions or free enterprise. I am for a level playing field.
If we want to discuss this as an ICANN policy issue, we must ignore what registrars choose to do with expired domains once they have assumed ownership of them from their customers. From a policy perspective, it does not matter whether they keep the names or auction off 100% of them. Either registrars allow domains to drop when they expire or they keep them for their own benefit. All the talk about cherry picking may be good motivation to ask ICANN to enforce the intent of its Expired Domain Deletion Policy. http://www.icann.org/en/registrars/eddp.htm However, the practice cannot be distinguished from the use of “exclusive” auction services such as NameJet, SnapNames and others that benefit registrars that sell customers’ expired domains.
Elliot, you may be right about the time frame of the original drop policy, but this Expired Domain Deletion Policy was passed in December 2004 and I am sure that you will agree that regardless of whether registrars have found ways to legally ignore the intent, it is clear that the intent of this policy in was for expired domains to be deleted. The parties involved in writing this policy in 2004, were certainly aware of SnapNames, Pool and some portfolio owners’ use of the daily drop to acquire deleting expired domains.
There were problems with the drop model for reallocation of expired domains as well. Many domains never made it to a marketplace where everyone had a “fair” chance to acquire them. I am not sure if there is a perfect system. Elliot is right; there are some that do not like what domainers are doing any more than domainers like what registrars are doing. A movement to change policy may cause change to an expired name policy that we have not anticipated.
Maybe if registrars voluntarily chose to auction 100% of the expired domains instead of “cherry picking”, domainers would not be motivated to see a change back to the old days. Elliot, do you think that there is any chance of voluntary change to avoid opening this issue at ICANN? Other than cherry-picking, I do not see much motivation from domainers to end registrars’ benefit from current policy of lack of enforcement of policy intent.
Michael, your points are valid with one big IF! If domainers are willing to choose the lesser of the two evils. Many of us are not willing to do that.
Donna,
Ok, so you do not like the current policy or the previous policy. What do you propose happens to expired domains? I am sure that there may be a better system/method for reallocating expired domains. I just haven’t heard of one that is perfect.
Michael
Michael, I will repeat..Shaun said it best:
What a concept, do what ICANN originally intended.
Donna,
Forgive me I do not understand. Thre seems to be a conflict between your two statements. Isn’t the previous deletion practice, one of the “two evils” that you said domainers are not willing to accept.
I do not oppose reverting to the old policy, just trying to understand “If domainers are willing to choose the lesser of the two evils. Many of us are not willing to do that.”
The two evils are registrars “keeping” domains and selling them on thier own site (and being open about it doesn’t mean a thing or make it any different), and names being funneled to auction.
To be more clear Michael, I was responding to this statement in your post:
Maybe if registrars voluntarily chose to auction 100% of the expired domains instead of “cherry picking”, domainers would not be motivated to see a change back to the old days.
Got it. I understand now. Thank you.
I personally would like to go to the WLS idea.
No auctions, no keeping domains.
Backorder the domain your interested in and if it drops you get it for like $69.
If a domain that is expired get renewed you can move your reservation to a new name.
Rob – The unpaid names in our Moniker registrar are not expired names that we take from customers. They are from domain financing accounts that did not pay for their domains. We do not cherry pick domains from customers expired domains and keep them for our selves and never have.
We do however offer a great service to help customer recover their domains and get names that others have let go….and that is called SnapNames.com !
Monte
Thanks for the clarification
Hmm, a lot to address here:
For David: I said “many of the TOP REGISTRARS”, not “all registrars”, so I’m not lumping in “hundreds of innocent registrars” like you stated. Besides that, we only have about 75 truly standalone registrars, the rest are shells not open to the public or they are resellers (which can be used in many ways). I would say that at least 5-8 or more TOP registrars use this practice of cherrypicking. Why wouldn’t they? If you took the time to research my background, you’d know I have knowledge of how registrars work, even at a limited level. (I don’t list all the registrars I’ve worked with, but naming them as clients doesn’t mean they have used this practice)
David, you said “How about shoppers.com which NSI dropped to NameJet.com and which sold for $170K I believe early last year?” Huh? NSI (which I think you mean to be NetSol) OWNS NAMEJET. We can safely assume that NetSol is making a profit selling expired domains through their own auction site, NameJet.
A registrar gets a piece of the profits when their expired domains are pushed to auction houses and are sold. I don’t have inside facts on Netsol’s sale agreement on domains sold through their own auction house, NameJet, but I can confidently “surmise” that they are receiving a healthy profit. They’re welcome to prove my assumptions wrong.
For Donna: I’m not here to “post it and boast it”. I’m stating what I know from my experience as a domain consultant who has worked at some level with many different registrars. You can believe me, or not. However, I’ll be happy to communicate with you on a private level. I’ve always wanted to speak to you anyway, so I look forward to hearing from you and I can answer your questions.
I think Monte answered Rob’s statement about Moniker quite succinctly. However, I should have made it ultimately more clear in my original comment:
There are top registrars who “watch” expiring domains, check their quality, and hone in on them immediately upon 28 days expiry completion. This is something that isn’t “policed” regardless of what you think the ICANN rules are. However, most of the registrars I know go out of their way to return the domains if the previous owner complains, even after the RGP is up.
My comments about Tucows wasn’t based on the general complaint of registrars cherrypicking domains. To me, that’s just a registrar’s “opportunism” and the fact that this practice has greatly helped their bottom line. I understand it, I don’t complain about it because I’m a different type of domain investor who has “thought around” this tactic I can’t control. Maybe ICANN will, but I doubt it. My complaint about Tucows was based on their purchase of an “unfairly operated registrar”, ItsYourDomains.com, and the fact they let this registrar run without “fixing” blatant unfair policies.
One way or another, someone at a registrar who knows a domain’s traffic and revenue while it’s expiring for 28 days will somehow get that domain before an outside domainer does. The days of killer drops has been over since 2004, in an overall sense. Of course, you could get lucky.
My complaint was about Tucows and their ownership of Itsyourdomains and its blatant cheating of their customers.
If you want to get facts on whether your registrar is cherrypicking through expiring domains, contact the executives at the registrar you buy from and ask them directly about their policies on what they do with their customers’ expiring domains. Maybe they’ll be upfront with you. Or not.
Peace to all. Congrats to Obama. Maybe we’ll get a real President this time.
Oops! Sorry Michael. I was posting on two other sites and mixed up your name with someone elses. Just look at it as you being “Michael-angelo” and my mistake as being your work on “David”. I apologize for the mistake.
I have an online store, hawaiian-shirt.net I went to YummyNames.com and lo and behold! hawaiian-shirtS.net!
I have been after the plural version of this domain for years, and the url is so obscure (a hyphenated dot net, for pete’s sake) that any traffic it gets MUST come off my site’s customer base.
But when I went to purchase it, suddenly it was “unavailable”.
I think Tucows is about as sleazy a company as they get.
So how about it, Mr Noss, “Mr Clarity”… how about selling the domain I built the traffic for that you said you would sell in your listings?
Or are you as sleazy as I think you are?
- – -
Hi John,
I’ve spoken to the General Manager and unfortunately he’s confirmed that we can’t sell this. I do apologize.
Regards,
Alex Fenemore
Domain Name Specialist
YummyNames
http://www.yummynames.com
Why settle for a lousy domain name?
John Bottomley wrote:
Hi Alex,
I own hawaiian-shirt.net. Any traffic you get is on my back.
I would really appreciate it!
John
—– Original Message —–
From: Alex Fenemore
To: John Bottomley
Sent: Friday, October 31, 2008 11:23 AM
Subject: [Fwd: hawaiian-shirts.net - yn site inquiry]
Hi John,
I do have to apologize. This domain was showing up in the yummynames search when it should not have. We do apologize for wasting your time, but would like to say thank you for helping us identify this bug.
Regards,
Alex Fenemore
Domain Name Specialist
YummyNames
http://www.yummynames.com
Why settle for a lousy domain name?
——– Original Message ——– Subject: hawaiian-shirts.net – yn site inquiry
Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2008 06:17:03 -0700
From: YummyNames System
To: yummynames@tucows.com, bill@yummynames.com
Domain:
hawaiian-shirts.net
Name:
John Bottomley
Email:
(omitted)@earthlink.net
Phone:
704-omitted
Message:
Interested in this url only if the price is reasonable. Please advise.
no response from Tucows & Elliot ever since last post on Nov 6, 2008 at 8:50 pm..
put ur side of the story !!
jay, I think I have bored people silly at this point in the thread with my side of the story. I feel like I have presented my position on everything but global warming (I am against it!).
was there something specific you are referring to?
Elliot, If your company follows everything as per ICANN or the book.. why you trying to benefit from someone else’s brand??
Thats bit specific, I reckon.. and on top of that, How in the world did the name which was on sale all this while end up being “Not Available For Sale” right after you had received an inquiry from the person who holds very much similar name for his business..
The situation has “BAD FAITH” argument written all over it from WIPO’s point of view.. IMO
Tucows, are we making money of others hard work, established businesses &/or brand names??
@Jay @89,
We contacted John directly to clear up the confusion. I was kind of hoping he’d post a follow-up here to indicate that we’d done so. Maybe he still will.
YummyNames occasionally does bulk sales of domain names to other domainers. When we do so we put together a portfolio for them to consider and during that time the names are considered not available for sale to others. If the buyer does not purchase a particular name we change the status back and allow sales to others.
In this case we simply forgot to omit those special case names from the search tool on YummyNames. We’ve since corrected that and have thanked John for pointing out the error.
oh so CONFUSION or ERROR is to be blamed now..?? Ok and why are we still selling a domain name which is almost similar to someones brand/business & creates confusion in the mind of general public..
I see you have it loaded with PARKED ads and making money from the traffic which lands up on it thinking its JOHNs online store..
JOHN I think you should file case wit WIPO and raise “BAD FAITH” argument and produce all this as evidence along wit inquiry emails.
Let Tucows learn it hard way!!
@Jay @91,
Like I said, we’ve been in contact with John. I don’t think it’s for me to make any details of our communication public.
I understand that you question our intentions which I’m sorry about but at this point (as post number 91 in this thread) I’m not sure there is much I can say that will sway you from that opinion.
I was able to find the Tucows letter in my email filter, or I would have responded sooner. I only just now saw these postings too.
Jay, I do not own a trademark on that url. I don’t know if I am entitled to a copyright either. Therefore, I cannot issue a complaint to the authorities. I could only ask for the owners to do what I felt to be the right thing, which was to sell me the domain’s plural. I was not asking for a gift, I would have purchased and gone away happy.
To everyone: my apologies for name calling. I was angry, and no matter the case, it was wrong for me to do that. I hate losing my cool, I am uncomfortable about it, and it is not my custom to do so.
Tucows has been generous. They are giving the plural url to me free of charge. They did not have to do this, and my anger was not a postive motivation; it is a gesture of goodwill. Please someone, do give them at least a kudo for doing this on this board.
There is one point that I want to be make.
I am addressing the part of the letter that expressed disapproval that I had brought this to the fore on a public posting.
This is understandable, however….
I have been writing for several years to purchase this domain, and been stonewalled. If I had I not posted here in a public venue, the stonewalling would have continued.
Even as recently as Halloween weekend, it was for sale and then not. That was a really big thing for me.
Now granted, this may have been due to not reaching the right people. But I do not have the ability to pick up the phone and call the executive branch of Tucows. It’s not that my phone is broken, I have no idea who to ask for or where to look up such numbers.
It is understandable that executives need not be bothered with issues that can be handled by other people paid to handle customer contacts. Executives of any company have other bigger fish to fry and need to be insulated from the public if they are to do their job.
To the best of my ability to discern, this insulation, admittedly necessary, worked.
To his credit, the rep Alex did the right thing, and asked his general manager about selling the url. It did go up the food chain, but apparently not far enough.
Perhaps executive contact info is obvious public information. Had I known of it, I would have called long ago. If so, my lack.
I would like to offer an idea. It may be good, it may be inapplicable, but here goes.
Take a good employee, (actually, an outstanding employee) and make him/her an onbudsman with access to all levels of Tucows AND grant them some select executive authority. Allow the public acces to your ombudsman if first filtered through existing customer service.
It would relieve the executive branch of one more thing, give lower management an alternative to contacting higher management, and gives the buying public higher trust through interaction and special issue resolution.
I am on first name basis with my rep at GoDaddy, and for all sakes and purposes, he could be given the title Ombudsman.
@John @93,
Thanks for the kind words John.
The idea of an ombudsman is an interesting one. We have a Compliance department that plays that role for the millions of registrants whose names we manage and generally they’re the ones who are the first step in dealing with non-registrants having an issue with any domain registered through us as well. So while we don’t use that title, I think we have a similar role in place. I’ll talk to Bill about making the Compliance department’s contact information visible on YummyNames as well as in our Domain Help are where it has been public since we went live at the turn of the century.
In this case your request was seen by Elliot and me before compliance heard about it because we’re engaged in this thread so we skipped a step.
Good on your part @ Ken @ TuCows, atleast we did something right
Congrats John!!
All the people who’ve been criticizing Tucows here should be concerned about what registry operators might do should the draft new gTLD draft contracts go through unmodified.
As was already discussed in this blog:
http://www.thedomains.com/2008/10/24/will-verisign-be-able-to-charge-preimum-prices-for-com/
the new registry draft contracts propose eliminating price controls. Existing registries would be able to copy those into existing contracts, raising the possibility of tiered pricing again.
And what was the “compromise” that was proposed by some last time this battle was fought?
http://www.circleid.com/posts/tiered_variable_pricing_compromise/
Michael Palage, a consultant to Afilias, proposed that the registry operators be able to engage in tiered pricing after a domain expires and gets deleted.
So far, though, few people have even taken the time to comment. The registry operators might not even have to “compromise”, but could do whatever they want! So, take a moment and voice your concerns at:
http://www.icann.org/en/topics/new-gtld-comments-en.htm
Don’t expect all of the registrars to voice opposition, as many of them appear to be positioning themselves to own new gTLDs themselves, and would love to have tiered pricing powers to maximize their profits at the expense of registrants. Only the ones who have large existing .com holdings might have mixed feelings about this — for the rest of them, they’d not have much to lose.
@ Rick Schwartz who says that “This industry and domainers in particular need to stop supporting companies that don’t treat them well and could give a shit about what is good for them, the industry or anything else”
Mr. Shwartz, once again your actions are not commensurate with your words. You cry foul at Tucows for warehousing and ask people not to support them while at the same time you patronize companies like directnic who self admittedly are involved in domain warehousing.
You patronize directnic by parking domain names that you own such as divorcee and faking.com with Parked, a subsiduary of directnic which leaves one with the impression that you don’t truly care what businesses are up to, as long as you can make some money off of them.
As Parked is a sponsor of TRAFFIC and as you are able to make $ wth their domain parking platform you are apparently somewhat less inclined to label them as whores and scumbags the way you did Tucows, despite the fact that they are engaged in the same practices.
At the very least Mr. Schwartz this makes you a man of selective vision and at worst a hypocrit whose words can not be trusted.
monte, no cherry picking domains??? You let the sleeze bags, oversee.net acquire you guys…
CHESTER DOMAINS ring a bell?
Thats right – I guess Oversee cherry picked Moniker.com and what a sweet cherry it is
Oversee has not used moniker and we have not participated in cherry picking domains out from our customers.
@ Monte
Truthfully, this is a historic moment, when normally disengaged Monte makes an emotional comment on a blog regarding Moniker. What I will personally stand behind is that his comments are true. I’m a moniker client, with over 1000 domains with them.. and Monte stands true to his word.
!