DashWorld Domains

dragtastic said:

Has anyone here registered any domains with dashworlds?

It's pretty cool - and is free right now - I wonder if these will ever gain value - any thoughts?

I managed to snag a few and I do like the fact that you can forward to your own url

Click to expand...

*

Yes, I registered a few, which I plan to forward to active sites.

As for value, I just don't know.

At this point in time, I just can't see example-com outranking example.com.

But you never know.

*

What are the renewal costs on these?

Can you provide a sample link?

*

I don't know the renewal rates. No credit card was required, so if it's too much, I'll just let mine expire.

It appears that the free registration is for one year.

I haven't done anything with mine yet, but one of my links will look like this:

http://advice-com

No www and no dot anything, just the -com or -net. I'm not sure how that works, without a TLD.

I wonder if the lack of TLD might confuse users. Also, how will the search engines view this?

I picked up a few, but not a lot, just ones related to existing blogs.

The site url: dashworlds.com (which, I notice, does have a TLD).



ADDED: I went ahead and delegated all my dashworlds domains to my websites.

However, delegation can take 72 hours.

*

The problem here is; only people with their (dashworlds) plugins installed on their browser can browse those names...


~Rami

steitieh said:

The problem here is; only people with their (dashworlds) plugins installed on their browser can browse those names...


~Rami

Click to expand...

that's a major problem.

steitieh said:

The problem here is; only people with their (dashworlds) plugins installed on their browser can browse those names...


~Rami

Click to expand...

So it's basically New.net again. Well that's pretty useless.

*

I knew it was too good to be true.

I'm not interested in adding a plugin from a basically unknown site.

I'll wait to see if this is a safe plugin before I even consider it.

Oh, well.

*

Ms Domainer said:

*

I knew it was too good to be true.

I'm not interested in adding a plugin from a basically unknown site.

I'll wait to see if this is a safe plugin before I even consider it.

Oh, well.

*

Click to expand...

Ditto

steitieh said:

The problem here is; only people with their (dashworlds) plugins installed on their browser can browse those names...


~Rami

Click to expand...

Yes I agree that is a problem right now, but if somehow this gets big and say for example IE, chrome, or firefox adapt the plugin - then I can see this skyrocketing since everyone will be able to access the url in their browser.

Right now its much smaller and free.

*

Definitely a wait and see.

I'm not going to cancel my domains (I regged some potential biggies); I'll just keep an eye on developments.

I learned long ago not to pooh-pooh potential new developments out of hand, but I'm also cautious.



Hint: the text after the dash does NOT have to be a TLD. It can be just about anything, which opens up a lot more possibilities.

*

It will be interesting to see how this goes.

If one of the major browsers is convinced to add compatibility for these, then this could be massive. If not, then this quite clever idea - will fail miserably.

Time will tell.

I registered about 100 domains. If this concept does take off, then I'm sitting on a goldmine. Of course if it doesn't, then I'll be sitting on a pile of pigeon s**t.

Either way, all it's cost me is a little bit of my time.

dashworlds a total scam?? check out the TOS!

I, too, registered a few hundred domains with dashworlds, so obviously it'd be great if it ever did take off b/c, like demonoid said, I'd be sitting on a goldmine. I came across them after reading a post on Teen Domainer.

THAT SAID, I have serious concerns about the credibility of dashworlds.

Have you read their Terms of Service in full?? There are a lot of sketchy elements in there that give rise to a lot of concerns.

COST

As everyone has noticed, they have not said what the renewal fees will be.

In section 5 of the TOS (Payment), we have two items of serious concern:

"5.1. In the case of free domains the Customer will not be obliged to pay the Fees to the Company for the period contracted by the Customer from the date when the Customers application has been accepted and payment will only be due upon renewal as provided for in Clause 6 herein." - yet Clause 6 still does not specify pricing.

Even worse:

"5.3. The Company reserves the right to increase the Fees at any time on giving not less than 7 days notice to the Customer." -- so at any time they can arbitrarily decide to charge us whatever they want for the domains we have registered and we have 7 days to cough up the funds or lose the domain??

And it only gets worse from here:

"5.6. The Company may terminate this agreement at any time and cancel the Customers registration of the Domain Name if the Customer fails to pay when due any Fee, or in the case of free domains at any time or for whatever reason. Following such termination and/or cancellation the Domain name may be resold by the Company and registered in the name of any new customer"

WTF?!? At any time, w/o reason, they can just decide to take any/all of your domains from you and sell them??

Based on DashWorlds recent press releases and comments on blogs that they are trying to pump up their number of customers and the amount of domains registered by offering these supposed free domains so that they have leverage when trying to convince ISPs and browsers to allow their domains to be seamlessly accessed, w/o the use of their now required plug-in. Then once (if) they finally get their dashcoms working in the mainstream, they'll just grab back all of the domains for themselves and resell them??

Am I just being super cynical here, or does this seem really sketchy to anyone else?

Obviously all of this is not withstanding the current fact that at present none of these dashcom domains can be accessed w/o someone having installed their plugin (which is not likely to happen) and the sites will likely not be indexed by the search engines, either.

What makes them different from other registrars?

ebess said:

And it only gets worse from here:

"5.6. The Company may terminate this agreement at any time and cancel the Customers registration of the Domain Name if the Customer fails to pay when due any Fee, or in the case of free domains at any time or for whatever reason. Following such termination and/or cancellation the Domain name may be resold by the Company and registered in the name of any new customer"

WTF?!? At any time, w/o reason, they can just decide to take any/all of your domains from you and sell them??

Based on DashWorlds recent press releases and comments on blogs that they are trying to pump up their number of customers and the amount of domains registered by offering these supposed free domains so that they have leverage when trying to convince ISPs and browsers to allow their domains to be seamlessly accessed, w/o the use of their now required plug-in. Then once (if) they finally get their dashcoms working in the mainstream, they'll just grab back all of the domains for themselves and resell them??

Am I just being super cynical here, or does this seem really sketchy to anyone else?

Obviously all of this is not withstanding the current fact that at present none of these dashcom domains can be accessed w/o someone having installed their plugin (which is not likely to happen) and the sites will likely not be indexed by the search engines, either.

Click to expand...

I share some of your concerns ebess.

My main concern is that Dashworlds feels it's reasonable to cancel "free domains at any time or for whatever reason".

In my opinion, this term severely impedes on building the trust of users (and potential users) in Dashworld and their domain concept. At this critical early stage of adoption - that's really not good.

Of course firms often stipulate these types of conditions, however they are not usually this broad. For example, a firm may state that if a service is used for certain illegal activities, then a customer will forfeit that service - now that does seem reasonable to me.

But to allow for a firm to take back a domain "for whatever reason" - in my opinion, this is very far from being reasonable.

Demonoid said:

I share some of your concerns ebess.

My main concern is that Dashworlds feels it's reasonable to cancel "free domains at any time or for whatever reason".

In my opinion, this term severely impedes on building the trust of users (and potential users) in Dashworld and their domain concept. At this critical early stage of adoption - that's really not good.

Of course firms often stipulate these types of conditions, however they are not usually this broad. For example, a firm may state that if a service is used for certain illegal activities, then a customer will forfeit that service - now that does seem reasonable to me.

But to allow for a firm to take back a domain "for whatever reason" - in my opinion, this is very far from being reasonable.

Click to expand...

I dont really think they can just "take" yorur domains - say they cost $5 or whatever to renew and say the owner doesnt pay within 7 or so days - then I can see them taking the domain name back - i dont think they can just say - Holy sh*t thats a great domain worth $xx,xxx and im going to take it back

dragtastic said:

I dont really think they can just "take" yorur domains - say they cost $5 or whatever to renew and say the owner doesnt pay within 7 or so days - then I can see them taking the domain name back - i dont think they can just say - Holy sh*t thats a great domain worth $xx,xxx and im going to take it back

Click to expand...

dragtastic, I'm inclined to agree with you on the point that it's unlikely they would take such a foolish action (it would be commercial suicide).

However, my point is that their terms do not preclude this possibility and this is likely to be a cause of concern for many users. This is not going to do them any favours at this stage, where the level of user trust and adoption of their service is critical.

The fact that this is being discussed highlights that this open ended term is an issue.

I've had this discussion with another 'dash domain speculator' and they brought it up, so I think many people are doing due diligence and acting with caution, given that this company is largely an unknown quantity.

That said, this company has been professional and open in all communications I've seen, and I certainly don't wish to imply otherwise. I just think that they should do themselves a favour and revisit their terms and conditions.

Old story and old idea - new.net started similar business years ago ("plugin" needed for name resolve at nat/isp/local broswer). Dont waste your time or money onto that.

---------- Post added at 05:18 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:06 PM ----------

Ms Domainer said:

*

I'm not interested in adding a plugin from a basically unknown site.

*

Click to expand...

If you can see advice-com forwarding to somewhere, you already installed that plugin. As I said, that domain recored does not (and cant) exist and it can be seen only if you have their plugin.

If you as me, I hear about them for the first time.
What accreditations do they have?

It seems likely that someone at Dashworlds has read this thread, because they have now updated their terms and conditions:


"5.6. The Company may terminate this agreement at any time and cancel the Customers registration of the Domain Name if the Customer fails to pay when due any Fee. Following such termination and/or cancellation the Domain name may be resold by the Company and registered in the name of any new customer."

As far as I'm concerned, they have completely addressed the previous issue with this term.

This now seems perfectly reasonable to me, if a user doesn't pay due fees, they lose their name... sounds fair enough to me!

It's great to see that Dashworlds are prepared to take on board user feedback.

:tu:

Actually, I've been meaning to post a follow-up here.

I wrote to Dashworlds.com expressing my deep concern about item 5.6 in their TOS (see below for full email). They replied within fifteen minutes and said that they understood my concern and that they would forward my email to their legal department. The very next day they emailed me and said:

We write to advise you that following your email, we are in the process of reviewing and clarifying some of Dashworlds Terms and Conditions. In this regard, please note that term 5.6 has now been amended as follows:

5.6. The Company may terminate this agreement at any time and cancel the Customers registration of the Domain Name if the Customer fails to pay when due any Fee. Following such termination and/or cancellation the Domain name may be resold by the Company and registered in the name of any new customer.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

So far, I have found their support team to be extremely professional and responsive to all emails. The fact that they took my email seriously and then went so far as to actually change their Terms and Conditions as a result really impressed me.

Obviously I was initially extremely skeptical of Dashworlds, but I now find myself to be a happy customer hoping that dash-com domains really take off (which can clearly only happen if they eventually reach some agreement with the major browsers so no plug-in is needed for the domains to resolve). I read in a blog comment on teendomainer.com that 330,000 dashcom domains had already been registered. A Dashworld rep also posted there that they had no plans to charge for renewals (only time will tell if this is true, but I hope so).

Whether this is a gold rush or a waste of my time remains to be seen, but I do feel the company is a professional, responsive and trustworthy one.

For those who are interested, here is the exact email I sent them:

Hi Dashworlds,

I am very concerned about the implications and intentions of one of the items in your Terms and Conditions. Specifically, item 5.6:

"5.6. The Company may terminate this agreement at any time and cancel the Customers registration of the Domain Name if the Customer fails to pay when due any Fee, or in the case of free domains at any time or for whatever reason. Following such termination and/or cancellation the Domain name may be resold by the Company and registered in the name of any new customer."

Click to expand...

This term makes it hard for a domainer to gain trust in Dashworlds as a registrar, as it is an overly vague and broad statement. It would be one thing if the terms specified that a domain registration could be canceled if used for illegal purposes, etc, but to say "at any time or for whatever reason" is scary to me -- it makes me question whether all of the time I am spending coming up with great domains to register will turn out to be wasted b/c Dashworlds could, on a whim, take all of the domains back from me. It causes particular concern because it makes one wonder if once a domain becomes valuable, Dashworlds will just take it back and then sell it to the highest bidder (or something similar).

Can you please explain the reasoning for item 5.6? Even better, would you consider modifying your terms to not be so over-reaching?

I know many other domainers who are not even bothering with dash-com domains specifically because of this clause in the terms and conditions.

Your prompt attention to this matter is greatly appreciated.

Click to expand...

Anyone who has any questions or concerns about any other elements of their Terms, etc should seriously contact them and let them know of your issue.