Domain Names And The US Election

Obama has change.gov and McCain has RepublicanForAReason.com. Many Internet marketers are commenting that RepublicanForAReason.com is too long and hard to type. I’d have to agree.

It took another Domainer to figure out that RepublicansForAReason.com wasn’t registered, so its now parked at Sedo. I wonder who the (now former) Republican staffer was who forgot to register that one?

Perhaps it was Senator Ted Stevens, former chair the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation? Here is Ted explaining what happened:

eNom Loses Domain – Uses Schultz Defense

I am often astounded at the incompetence of others. One of the major problems with these “virtual assets” is that we rely on other companies to hold them for us. Its not like money, where you can take it out of the bank and put it under your mattress.

Here is a classic example of a story that is unfolding right now about one of my domain names.

The registrar in question, eNom is using the Sgt Schultz defense of “I know nothing” and its driving me crazy. Has this ever happened to you?

Timeline

1. Win NameJet auction on December 4, 2007 and the domain goes into my eNom account.

2. Receive renewal notice on October 20, 2008 from eNom saying that my domain name will expire on 11-30-2008.

3. Try to transfer the domain name out to another registrar. When I try to release the lock at eNom I get “Failed to get Registrar Lock Status“. When I click on “Email Auth Code to Registrant” it says “Domain does not have an AuthInfo key“. Very strange – so I contact eNom support.

4. eNom support say “This domain is not registered with eNom at this time” and that its with “Registrar: DOMAIN JINGLES, INC.”. This is interesting, because I can SEE THE DOMAIN IN MY ACCOUNT !!! I also don’t have an account with Domain Jingles.

5. I check the Domain Jingles whois and it says my domain is “Registration Service Provided By: eNom, Inc.” Hmmm….

6. I update the support ticket with these new facts and receive this response from eNom: “We have forwarded this ticket to our senior technical support staff to research further. Depending on what we find it might be a few days before we have a solution or additional questions for you. I have requested a resolution as quickly as possible to minimize your wait time.”

7. Today I login to my eNom account and the domain name is no longer there. It’s just disappeared! I have received no notices to transfer it out. The whois data is registered under my name and my contact email address. Nothing has changed except that its no longer in my account.

8. I called eNom phone support in the USA. They tell me that the domain is with DomainJingles (who is  an eNom reseller) and that I should call them. The support staff also tell me that they will flag this ticket and ask their techo’s to investigate. I explain the obvious concerns I have about:

• Having a domain in my account that suddenly disappeared.
• The fact that the domain name expires in a months time and nobody can tell me where it went!
• The registrar asks me (their customer) to contact THEIR reseller, who I don’t know.

I’ve tried to make contact with Domain Jingles, and will keep you all posted on further developments. In the meantime, if you can think of anything feel free to post a comment.

Lessons Learned From A 5am Auction

Exclusive Podcast: What’s in a Name?

Legal sales of .com.au domain names are on our doorstep. Where are the opportunities and what are the issues? Will we see sales like the $12M sex.com ?

This is the podcast from an event I attended at the Churchill Club in Melbourne. The panelists were:

Richard Moore – CEO, Dark Blue Sea Ltd
Bruce Tonkin – CTO, Melbourne IT Ltd
Jo Lim – Chief Policy Officer, .au Domain Administration Ltd (auDA)

Thanks for Brendan Lewis (who was also the moderator) for permission to reproduce the podcast of the event.

I hope you enjoy it.

auDA Releases Industry Competition Draft

auDA’s Industry Competition Advisory Panel has released draft recommendations for public consultation. Here some interesting points:

1. “The Panel recommends that auDA should require all overseas accredited registrars to register with ASIC to trade in Australia.”

That’s going to irritate the overseas registrars who have largely operated remotely; some of which have multiple credentials.

2. “auDA should work with the registrar community to develop a policy to ensure fair and equitable access to the registry so that the ownership of a number of registrar accreditations does not create an unfair market advantage.”

Again – they are worried about registrars having multiple credentials and picking up dropped domains. Lets share the love and hold hands.

3. “The Panel believes that the current policy on the registration of domain names by registrars on their own behalf is satisfactory. The Panel believes that auDA should work to ensure fairness and transparency in the provision of registrar services and access to information that may provide a market advantage. The Panel makes no recommendation in this draft document but will consider the issue again after receipt of public comments.” I think this might be code for lets stick our heads in the sand and see if anyone notices.

Yes I’m a capitalist – if someone can put up the cash and run multiple registrars, then great. Why should a growing industry like domain name sales, be hampered by further regulation? It doesn’t make sense to me.

Jamaican Gold Medalist Domain Names Blocked

The Olympics has created a new set of celebrities and some domainers have seen the $$ and have registered the .com’s and put some up for sale.

In the case of Jamica, the Jamaica Intellectual Property Office JIPO is now involved.

JIPO executive director Carol Simpson told The Jamaica Observer that the athletes’ rights are secured globally – “Usain is a protected trademark and we would discourage anyone trying to infringe on his intellectual property rights.”

UsainBolt is currently listed at Sedo – but for how long?

Police Lose Their Domain – Russian Snaps It Up

Eureka is the county seat and principal city in Humboldt County, California, United States.

It’s been reported that their Police Department has allowed their domain name to expire.

The new owner of eurekapd.org in Russia has allegedly kept some of the content.

Police Chief Garr Nielsen told the Eureka Reporter that he wasn’t aware of the domain name being taken over and made it clear he didn’t want the Web site online anymore, but the city of Eureka has not yet decided if it is a “problem” or not.

Well… my guess is that it will be – especially when Jack Bauer comes looking for an answer!

WIPO Takes Down Fake Arsenal Site

Its been reported that official-arsenal-tickets.com had been set up in bad faith to divert business from the club’s own site. For those interested in the details its WIPO case for D2008-0842.

While there have been various media reports speculating about who made the complaint; what I do know is that the complainant was The Arsenal Football Club Public Limited Company and the respondent was Domains by Proxy, Inc./Official Tickets Ltd.

auDA Wants Feedback On Industry Competition

auDA’s Industry Competition Advisory Panel is currently reviewing their competition model for the Australian domain name industry.

The Panel has released an Issues Paper for public consultation, which sets out the current situation and canvasses the issues and possible options for change. The closing date for submissions is Friday 1 August 2008.

Here are a few interesting points:

• “Abandon the competitive registry model and make auDA the registry operator”
  

This sounds like someone has been talking too much to ICANN or Verisign.

• “the start-up capital costs constitute the most significant barrier for prospective new entrants” Ohhh.. the poor kids down the road can’t become an operator.

HELLO, its called capitalism ! I’d note that “Accredited registrars pay an annual fee to auDA of $3,300 and there is also a $2,200 non-refundable accreditation application fee.”

• “auDA does not have the legal power to impose financial penalties on a registrar who has breached the Registrar Agreement.”

So registrars can basically do whatever they want as long as its not serious, to the point of suspension or termination the registrar’s accreditation.

• “Questions have been raised however, about the extent to which registrars should be allowed to participate in domain-related activities other than the core business of registering domain names for registrants. For example, is it appropriate or desirable for registrars to be in the business of warehousing domain names for their own domain monetisation purposes?”
  

Watch out – its those evil domainers again!

• “It has been suggested that this lack of market transparency could be addressed by publishing a list of deleted and expiring domain names, or by placing the domain names in a “holding pool” for a period of time before making them available to the general public.“

This is just a bad idea. Again, see the word capitalism. Looking into my crystal ball I see auDA being in a position to profit from this “holding pool”. Who will have the independence to maintain it?

It appears that auDA needs all the help it can get. Have a look at the Issues Paper and send your comments to:

auDA Industry Competition Advisory Panel
email: i...@auda.org.au
fax: 03 8341 4112

Domain Renewal Postal Mail

As a professional domainer with an ever growing portfolio I tend to attract spam – usually of the email kind. Most of my domains have whois privacy protection, some of the details like my email address change on a daily basis. As such, when spammers try to send me junk, it just bounces.

One thing I can’t seem to shake off is this unsolicited postal mail asking me to renew my domains with registrars and resellers. Yesterday I received three letters in the post. Two were from the “Domain Renewal Group” and one was from the “WorldWideWeb Register”.

I have uploaded a high resolution image of the Domain Renewal Group letter (936k jpg) as well as the WorldWideWeb Register letter (1.7meg jpg). Of course, I have removed some of the identifying information from them.

The Domain Renewal Group letter was printed on paper that’s a big bigger than standard A4, whereas the WorldWideWeb Register used very thin quality A4 sized paper, kind of like the old credit card receipt paper.

Domain Renewal Group

The terms and conditions are in tiny little print and are extremely difficult to read. In fact, you might need a magnifying class to read it properly. Here are some interesting paragraphs:

“If lawsuit(s) are threatened: If we are sued or threatened with lawsuit in connection with Service(s) provided to you, we may turn to you to indemnify us and hold us harmless from the claims and expenses……”

“You warrant that your use of our services is not going go subject us to any claim(s). You further agree to indemnify, defend and hold harmless us and applicable registry administrator(s)…..and all such parties‘ directors, officers, employees and agents from and against any and all claims, damages, liabilities, costs and expenses…….”

“All fees are non-refundable, in whole or in part, even if your domain name registration is suspended, cancelled or transferred prior to the end of your then current registration term, unless this Agreement specifically provides for a refund.”

When it comes to renewal costs they are VERY expensive – AU$40 to renew a .com for 1 year! They also suggest other names – in my case for .org and .biz at AU$75 each!

WorldWideWeb Register

Their letter tends to focus on the “Updating of your data:” which is the subtitle of the letter.

The letter was sent to my mailing address, but I didn’t own the domain name that it mentioned. The letter had a generic “company name” as the owner. When I checked the domain name, using whois, it was registered to a different owner.

The first line of their letter reads:

“We kindly ask you to update your subscription ensuring that you include your correct data, thus allowing all Internet users to contact you without any problem. In the attached document, you will find basic data about your company, which you should check in order to avoid publication of private websites.”

Apart from the sentence, not actually making sense – I wonder how many people would receive this letter, see that their details are wrong and then provide the correct information. The other interesting thing is that the domain name they mentioned was a .com.au. Traditionally the underlying registry data for .com.au has been hidden away. Perhaps this is a way to obtain that data, domain by domain?

An extract from page two of the letter reads “The applicant must correctly supply their information so that the contracted company may include it in the relevant editions of the World Web Company Register on CD-Rom, as well as in its Internet database…..”

The next page reads “…. I give GT@P – Guia Telefax Anuario Profesional, S.L. the order to publish my company data in the next three annual editions of its Web Company Register, both on the Internet (www.webcompanyregister.com) and on CD-Rom. The total cost per edition of the service contracted …… is 877 euros.”

Wow, so I pay you 877 euro to have my personal details appear in your database! Where do I sign?