"GoDaddy Software" owns about 15,969 other domains

All registrars do it. Register.com owns tons of generics, as well as Tucows.com etc. It must be nice to be able to just "steal" or keep the nice ones as they expire!

http://www.dotweekly.com/2008/01/16/another-generic-domain-stolen-by-a-registrar/

After a gem expires and they decide to keep it, they do! I think it's a bunch of BS as well and it needs to be stopped!

Yeah, Directnic does it also.

Was watching asiacasino.com as it was expired.
Day of deletion, 'poof', renewed under private whois to an offshore corp and nameservers changed to parked.com... hmmmmmmmmmm

Same thing has happened on other occasions also.

that could also be them providing private registration to their customers, couldn't it?

Why domainers should have the privilege of grabbing names and not the registrars ?

hyped said:

that could also be them providing private registration to their customers, couldn't it?

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That could be the case for Devil Dog's domain he stated, but again, I have seen several registrars do this with many domains.

Come the date the domain should go into auction, it just simply doesn't and the domains regisrant info, stays as the registrar.

I had a list of several domains that were stolen by the registrars, but I can't seem to find it now

i thought private registrations have "domains by proxy" as the registrant instead of "godaddy software".

sdsinc said:

Why domainers should have the privilege of grabbing names and not the registrars ?

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Because they do not get them in the "open market" the same way we do. They simply just take them and pay the $6 for renewal with no competition!

They all do it. This is exactly what Rick Swartz is preaching about. I don't particularly like Rick, but his preaching that this is only going to get worse. Not better. The only solution (which Rick preaches and I agree with him) is to become your own registrar, in order that you don't have your registrar go after, or even blatently steal your domains. Of course, toothless ICANN has a lot to do with registrars ignoring their contracts with the registries, who in turn, ignore their contracts with ICANN.

From ICANN's own registrar agreement ...

3.7.9 Registrar shall abide by any ICANN adopted specifications or policies prohibiting or restricting warehousing of or speculation in domain names by registrars.

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This has come up before as to why ICANN would incorporate such language into their registrar accreditation agreement, but then look the other way for years while registrars speculate and warehouse. I think it's self-explanatory to be blunt. And it's one of the reasons ICANN are held in such low regard by the greater community. It's called talking out both sides of your mouth. The inclusion of this statement represents that ICANN officials were once concerned about speculation/warehousing because of obvious conflict of interest issues with registrars competing against their own customers.

It's akin to saying "if we adopt a law against murder, then murder will be considered wrong and you will need to stop doing it." But until then, have at it.

Basically the TOS are crafted in such a way that expiring names become the property of the registrar.
Instead of making names available to us they could just keep them (that's what they are doing with some anyway). We could imagine different rules so they would have to drop all the expiring names but I doubt it would be possible to actually enforce that.
I realize the conflict of interest here as I consider registrars the custodian of our virtual estate, still they have every interest to screw you and don't count on icann to protect you.
In the meantime VeriSign continues to try to extend the reach of its monopoly, if they have it their way with central listing service (CLS) things could get even worse. Let's be careful what we wish for.

PS: I really thing we have a governance problem. An industry that is unable to self-regulate will ultimately be struck by regulations enforced from the outside and it's not going to be pretty.

sdsinc said:

Why domainers should have the privilege of grabbing names and not the registrars ?

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Because that would be like insider trading. They have the advantage of having the name automatically expire into their account without anyone else having a chance to get it plus they don't really have to pay anything to acquire it.

dax44 said:

According to ICANN I didn't think registrars were allowed to warehouse domains?

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Is there even a definition of warehousing?

The registrars abuse their trusted role. They should be neutral parties when it comes to 3rd party domains they have registered. If I think of a name - dax4pres.com and register it - then that is a piece of my intellectual property. If I choose to delete it - it SHOULD be deleted and made available for all again. I suspect I actually have copyright on that domain until it is deleted (and definately while it is in the hands of the company I entrusted it to) and if I sued the registrar I would win - they would cave. I have no doubt. I may try it soon. :evil:

What would happen if I made a positive cancellation request one day before expiry - they would have to delete then surely? Anyone know what the TOS says? I have actually done this for a number of TM issues but never checked if GD sent them to TDNAM* first ..

PS. This does not happen with .co.uk - the domain remains the owners's until it drops - the registrar cannot change registrant details.

The more I think about this , the more it stinks.

*Checkout TDNAM $15 domains for the GoDaddy Software emporium.

dax44 said:

if I sued the registrar I would win - they would cave. I have no doubt. I may try it soon. :evil:

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I guess you believe that because there hasn't been any online report of any
registrar's contract not being upheld for whatever reason?

http://davezan.com/sizevsnsi.txt

Read counts II and III of that decision. Other registrars have similarly worded
contracts.

Speaking of contract, you'd better read yours (if you haven't yet) because it
defines one another's responsibilities and relationships. You might be shocked
to find that registration doesn't grant you intellectual property rights, period.

But hey, don't let me get in your way of suing the registrar and trying to win.
Worse thing to expect is the registrar might sue you for breach of contract.

Carlton said:

From ICANN's own registrar agreement ...

3.7.9 Registrar shall abide by any ICANN adopted specifications or policies prohibiting or restricting warehousing of or speculation in domain names by registrars.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

And here's a question: what ICANN-adopted specification or policy prohibiting
or restricting warehousing of or speculation in domain names by registrars is
there? Anybody find one?

I shall abide by any NamePros adopted specification or policy that I will post
here wearing polka dot boxers. But...do I have to wear polka dot boxers?

Dave Zan said:

Is there even a definition of warehousing?

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I would bet that is part of the problem. A registrar could define warehousing as keeping for resale. If they say they are keeping as a company asset for future use, it could be argued that it isn't warehousing if it's being used or just held for development. "warehousing" is a pretty broad and undefined term.

I could say I have hundreds of domains and none are listed for sale. If they are being used as parking sites, I could argue they aren't being warehoused, but used in the business if part of my business was parking. Only if offered for the right price would I concede and sell one. I think the original intent was that registrars couldn't buy to speculate and sell on the secondary market, but as with other policies, they think they've found a loophole in a poorly defined description.

Most registrars even by ICANN are allowed to register lots of names as part of their business including misspells and sucks names just like any other company. They should just be prohibited from selling names on the secondary market or to prove why they want to reserve an unrelated name if it would appear to be speculating in the secondary market.

By I see this in domaintools:
Registrant Search: "GoDaddy.com, Inc." owns about 47,303 other domains

This is about 3 times what your thread title shows.