Interesting read you think it crazy now READ THIS totally crazy

equity78 · 02-11-2008, 03:59 AM

adultvideonews.com
avnlive.com

Sex.tv, The .tv Corporation at Odds By Kathee Brewer

Dec. 20, 2001
LOS ANGELES - Amid accusations of contract breaches, fraudulent
business practices, non-payment of debts, and defamation of
character, Sex.tv Ltd., a British company that owns "several
thousand" domain names ending in .tv, has hired attorney Charles
Carreon to protect its rights in a brewing dispute with The .tv
Corporation. Carreon is the attorney who represented Sex.com owner
Gary Kremen in the epic court battle that eventually returned what
has been called "the world's most valuable domain name" to Kremen
????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/dot-tv/430811-interesting-read-you-think-crazy-now.html
after it was hijacked by Stephen Cohen.

Contacted in Canada on Wednesday, Oregon-based Carreon said Sex.tv
Ltd. became concerned about its multi-year contract with The .tv
Corporation after the company's president, Fintan O'Rourke, received
an email message from The .tv Corporation Senior Director of Sales
David J. Rosenbaum. In the email, dated 10 days before payment of the
domain's second-year registration fee was due, Rosenbaum queried
O'Rourke about his plans for the domain name, asking, "Are you
planning to make full payment in time? Are you planning to breach the
contract? I have someone else that wants the name, who can send money
to arrive next week."

Jason Tucker, chief executive of Sex.tv Ltd., called the email
extortion and said it seemed to confirm vague rumblings he and
O'Rourke had been dismissing as rumor for some time. "Even before
Fintan got the email, we were hearing from other people that .tv was
trying to pre-sell the domain [in case we didn't pay]," he said.
"More specifically, we heard they were going to take [the domain
name] back at the end of the year to resell it for more money."

According to O'Rourke, if someone is in the wings to buy sex.tv, it
wouldn't be the first time. He said The .tv Corporation has offered
to sell it to someone else while his company held the contract.
"There is significant evidence to prove they've been misrepresenting
themselves and trying to sell the name starting three months into the
contract," O'Rourke said. "I have the evidence that supports an offer
to a German client for $1 million in May of this year."

Aviva Rosenthal, corporate communications senior manager for The .tv
Corporation, said her company has done nothing illegal or unethical,
and they don't expect Sex.tv Ltd.'s protestations to find a willing
audience. "It's a non-issue," she said. "The bottom line is we can't
pre-sell names; we don't pre-sell names. [Sex.tv Ltd.] is the
registrant, and [the company] will continue to be the registrant as
long as [it] follows the contract.

"The sex.tv domain name, like many other .tv domain names, draws a
lot of interest, and it is common for us to receive inquiries on the
most popular names from third parties," she said.

Carreon said his research into the issue has raised some troubling
questions. For one thing, he said The .tv Corporation appeared not to
be adhering to the CENTR Best Practice Guidelines for ccTLD Managers
as outlined by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and
Numbers. ccTLDs are Country Code Top Level Domain Name registries;
The .tv Corporation is one of these by virtue of its contract with
the kingdom of Tuvalu, a tiny island nation in the Pacific Ocean
about midway between Honolulu, Hawaii, and Brisbane, Australia.

Among The .tv Corporation's alleged violations of the ccTLD Managers
best practices guidelines are that it is not a resident of the
territory to which the ccTLD belongs. According to records maintained
by Network Solutions, The .tv Corporation's parent company, TLDs
Inc., has corporate headquarters in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and
technical offices in Los Angeles. All upper-level management of The
.tv Corporation seems to be based in Los Angeles.

In addition, the best practices require ccTLD managers to do "a
satisfactory job of supervising the operation of the DNS service for
the TLD. Duties such as the assignment of domain names, delegation of
sub-domains and operation of name servers must be done with technical
competence." Carreon said the sex.tv domain "was not functional for
quite some time" after it was purchased, apparently due to technical
problems at The .tv Corporation. "The hosting problem was virtually
insurmountable in Europe for quite a long time," he said, rendering
sex.tv unreachable via the World Wide Web.

According to Carreon and O'Rourke, there also are indications that
The .tv Corporation is not meeting its financial obligations to
Tuvalu. O'Rourke said he has been in contact with the Tuvalan royal
family about the matter. Essentially, Carreon said, ".tv is renting
out cyberspace without paying its mortgage." The .tv Corporation
denies the allegation.

O'Rourke also is upset with remarks he said a representative of The
.tv Corporation made before a tribunal in an unrelated wrongful
employment termination hearing earlier this year. "They said I was in
'bad standing' with them," he said. "That's defamation of character.
It's not true."

Perhaps chief among his complaints, he said, is the tone of the email
he received from The .tv Corporation's Rosenbaum. O'Rourke perceived
it as threatening: "At the end of the day," Rosenbaum wrote, "I have
a revenue figure that I need to manage to [sic] and I don't really
care where the money comes from. As you know, Sr. [sic] management
will require termination of the agreement and cancellation of the
domain if you breach the contract so if you are going to make
payment, then please tell me so that I can keep Sr. [sic] management
updated."
"I wasn't expecting it," O'Rourke said, noting that his company had
given The .tv Corporation no reason to doubt that payment would be
forthcoming under the deadline.

The .tv Corporation spokeswoman Rosenthal said O'Rourke
misinterpreted the tone and intention of the email. She also said no
one at her office had been contacted by anyone in the Sex.tv Ltd.
camp about the matter.

Carreon said he left a voicemail message for Rosenbaum on Wednesday.
Nothing has been filed at this point, he said; he just wants to talk.
"All I want to do is get my guys a fair shake," Carreon said. "Based
on my experiences with Sex.com, I know that Internet domain names can
be extremely valuable, and that Sex.tv will likely be one of the
greats. It's a very ambitious venture that is being taken very
seriously.
"Domain names are property, and property law applies in cyberspace,"
he said. "I choose cases based on their potential for setting
groundbreaking precedent, and this case has tremendous potential."

From: "Kathee Brewer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Gaylor Matthew" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: The plot sickens
Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2002 20:50:05 -0800

Continuing strife in the Sex.tv Ltd./.tv Corp. feud, including
allegations of fraud, deceptive business practices and
cybersquatting. Sex.tv is seeking other .tv domain owners to join the
suit, and says it already has several others waiting to do so; a
Website has been established for information and contact.

As I'm sure you know, The .tv Corporation was bought by Verisign in
January. It'll be interesting to see how Verisign responds to this,
as another of its subsidiaries, Network Solutions, has been sued by
sex.com. Sex.com also alleges fraud, as well as negligence, in the
affair that transferred sex.com to an imposter several years ago. The
domain was returned to the real owner, San Francisco businessman Gary
Kremen, last year in a decision that also ordered the usurper to pay
several million dollars in damages. The usurper now claims poverty
and an inability to pay the judgment, and he's asked the court to
release him from the obligation (no one's sure where the estimated
$40 million he made from the Website while he had it went).

<http://www.avnonline.com/issues/200202/newsarchive/021202_lead.shtml>

Sex.tv Sues .tv Corporation
By Kathee Brewer

Feb. 12, 2002

LOS ANGELES - <http://www.sex.tv/>Sex.tv disappeared from the Web on
Monday, hours after its parent company, Sex.tv Ltd., filed suit
against registrar <http://www.tv/>The .tv Corporation in U.S.
District Court. The lawsuit alleges fraud, cybersquatting, and
deceptive business practices under California and federal statutes.
It also seeks to have the court place the domain Sex.tv and the
$688,000 paid by Sex.tv Ltd. to The .tv Corporation for domain
registration fees in a "constructive trust" pending further action.

"Basically, we're saying The .tv Corporation made false statements in
order to sell things," said Charles Carreon, attorney for Sex.tv
Ltd., a British corporation. "They sold domain names with an implied
warranty of merchantability; they represented them as functional when
they had no functional IP addresses. They swindled my client and
hundreds of thousands of .tv domain name registrants by selling them
overpriced domain names that did not work. We are asking the court to
order Š The .tv Corporation to cough up what it obtained through
fraud, deception, and unfair business practices in violation of
California law."

According to a prepared statement released by Sex.tv Ltd., the
company "is suing on behalf of all domain name purchasers, and
includes in its complaints claims for cybersquatting, alleging that
The .tv Corporation engaged in a 'protection racket' to register
trademarks and 'ransom them back' to trademark owners for inflated
prices."

The .tv Corporation prices domain names according to "desirability."
According to a statement at the registrar's Website, "Most .tv Web
addresses can be registered for $50/year. 'Premium' .tv Web addresses
are common words and phrases and 1-, 2- and 3-character names. They
can be registered at variable prices above $50/year." Recent
registrations include drugstore.tv at $500,000, casino.tv at
$250,000, and gay.tv and free.tv at $100,000 apiece. Business.tv,
movies.tv, news.tv, and sports.tv are available for $1 million each.

Sex.tv Ltd. and The .tv Corporation have been at odds over implied
and written contractual obligations at least since mid-December, when
Sex.tv Ltd. President Fintan O'Rourke received an email message from
The .tv Corporation Senior Director of Sales David J. Rosenbaum. In
the email, dated 10 days before payment of the domain's second-year
registration fee of $325,000 was due, Rosenbaum queried O'Rourke
about his plans for the domain name, asking, "Are you planning to
make full payment in time? Are you planning to breach the contract? I
have someone else that wants the name, who can send money to arrive
next week."

At the time, Sex.tv Ltd. principals called the email extortive and
surprising, as they had not given The .tv Corporation any reason to
doubt payment for the domain registration would be forthcoming.
Carreon said he has been corresponding with officials of and
attorneys for The .tv Corporation since then in an effort to resolve
disputes over cooperative advertising, registration fees, and what he
and O'Rourke said were fraudulent promises of traffic volume. Amid
the negotiations, The .tv Corporation served notice of its intention
to revoke the contract with Sex.tv Ltd. to O'Rourke via fax. That was
on Jan. 11. Thirty days later, as allowed in the contract, it pulled
the DNS registration of the Sex.tv Website on the same day the
lawsuit was filed, after Carreon and O'Rourke decided negotiations
had reached an impasse and withheld payment of the registration fee.
On the same day, a notice appeared on a Web page to which the Sex.tv
domain was redirected, stating the domain was for sale at a price of
$1 million per year.

"I told [The .tv Corporation's attorney] on Thursday that the suit
would be filed on Monday," Carreon said. "I received confirmation of
the filing around noon on Monday, and at about 2:30 Fintan called me
to tell me that the domain had been turned off."

O'Rourke said, "We refused to make payment because of [The .tv
Corporation's] misrepresentations. We would have no problems making a
payment for a domain name and a contract that was everything it
should be, but this one hasn't been, and we're not prepared to pay
for this domain until they perform the things they promised us."

Chief among the breached promises, according to O'Rourke, was that
Sex.tv garnered 25 percent of all traffic entering domains within The
.tv Corporation's realm, or 625,000 hits per month. "That kind of
traffic would have represented about $1 million a year in revenues
for us," O'Rourke said, but in actuality, "we have achieved no more
than two or three hundred hits per day."

Another complaint involves the functionality of the domain,
especially in Europe. Carreon said technical difficulties within The
.tv Corporation prevented Sex.tv from being reached via the World
Wide Web at least until April 2001, even though Sex.tv Ltd. purchased
the domain in December 2000 and did everything in its power to make
it live immediately.

O'Rourke and Carreon said they are convinced that Sex.tv Ltd. is not
the only company to suffer at the hands of The .tv Corporation. They
expect other parties to join Sex.tv Ltd.'s lawsuit within weeks. A
Website has been established at <http://www.suingdottv.com/> to
provide information about the suit and facilitate contact for those
who might wish to join.

"[The .tv Corporation has] clearly defrauded may hundreds of
thousands of people throughout the world," O'Rourke said, noting that
he has spoken with other .tv domain owners who are as disgruntled as
he is with The .tv Corporation. "No matter how much [a registrant]
has spent, .tv has an obligation to perform, and we want this suit to
convince them of that."

Carreon and O'Rourke said Sex.tv Ltd. views the domain shutdown as
retaliation for the lawsuit. "The .tv Corporation has been in bad
faith since the beginning, and this latest turn is their usual M.O.,"
Carreon said. ".tv should do the right thing now that they have
Verisign behind them and pay some bills."

Verisign bought The .tv Corporation in January for $35 million.

Lynn Thai, marketing director for The .tv Corporation, said the
????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t=430811
company had "no comment" about Sex.tv or the lawsuit.

Kathee Brewer
Technology Editor
AVN Online/TCI
9414 Eton Ave.
Chatsworth, CA 91311
Voice: (409) 765-0172
Fax: (818) 718-5799
E-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
URL: <http://www.avnonline.com/>
__________________________________________________ ____
AVNOnline.com: Daily news and resources are just a click away.

************************************************** ************************

***Makis.TV*** · 02-11-2008, 04:23 AM

its old news, rite?

domainacrobat · 02-11-2008, 04:26 AM

Wow still taking it all in... Since its dated wayback I sure hope things are a little more transparent since then...

mckennaronnie · 02-11-2008, 04:27 AM

wow what a mess!
Not really the type of healines we want to see for one of the top .tv's, i really hope they get this sorted out and sex.tv really makes a mark but judging by all the claims & counter claims then nothing will be sorted anytime soon.
Stories like this just cast more doubts in investors eyes, many already dont trust or understand the premium renewal system so stories about false promises & trying to sell domains while they are owned could scare off 1000's of potential buyers forever.

equity78 · 02-11-2008, 04:30 AM

OH this was 6 years ago RONNIE, SEX.tv ltd does not exist from extensive research I did all night. A company from Italy owns the domain since 2002 registered for 20 years

mckennaronnie · 02-11-2008, 04:36 AM

Originally Posted by equity78

OH this was 6 years ago RONNIE, SEX.tv ltd does not exist from extensive research I did all night. A company from Italy owns the domain since 2002 registered for 20 years

????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t=430811
I never noticed the dates at all, just assumed it must be recent & that would be reason sex.tv is not used today.
So how did things end with all these accusations & potential lawsuits?
I take it that is the end the Brittish company sold the domain or let it drop?

equity78 · 02-11-2008, 04:42 AM

I spent hours searching there is nothing on what happened, not sure what you mean not used SEX.tv is a fully run site and listed on Lyngsat as having satellite capability

smashfactory · 02-11-2008, 05:13 AM

wow- that was some wild reading

SKG · 02-11-2008, 06:55 AM

The hijacking of traffic still exists today. Many of my domains revert back to the me tv platform even though they are set to forward elsewhere. At least 25 percent of traffic is being lost to domains that are being forwarded. I am speaking of forwarding not dns changing. This was brought to Enom's attention by someone I know and they cannot figure out why except to say something is wrong and we are working on it. Problem is this: the domain owners are paying premium and traffic is being lost at not other than our cost. I cannot say this holds true for actual dns changes but with absolute certainty I can say this is happening when .tv domains are forwarded and this is very sad to say the least.

Rogor · 02-13-2008, 03:30 AM

whew, now that's what I call bad press. Talk about getting off on the wrong foot. somewhat offtopic- Is anyone keeping track of Tuvalu's current mood? They could have a lot to say in 7 years time.

Dr. Mindwrecker · 02-13-2008, 06:44 AM

Originally Posted by SKG

The hijacking of traffic still exists today. Many of my domains revert back to the me tv platform even though they are set to forward elsewhere. At least 25 percent of traffic is being lost to domains that are being forwarded. I am speaking of forwarding not dns changing. This was brought to Enom's attention by someone I know and they cannot figure out why except to say something is wrong and we are working on it. Problem is this: the domain owners are paying premium and traffic is being lost at not other than our cost. I cannot say this holds true for actual dns changes but with absolute certainty I can say this is happening when .tv domains are forwarded and this is very sad to say the least.

????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t=430811
Maine.TV is always forwarding to channel me on the first type in.
Then the second time it forwards to portlandmaine.tv

Thank you for posting this, I was not sure if it was just me but now I see there is an issue.

Originally Posted by equity78

I spent hours searching there is nothing on what happened, not sure what you mean not used SEX.tv is a fully run site and listed on Lyngsat as having satellite capability

Thank you for taking the time to provide this info, a very interesting read...

jeffoverman · 02-13-2008, 07:55 AM

wow.....thanks in taking the time to research this raymond and posting.......surly was an intense reading.....

talking about this area-the big boys here and there are a couple that are here with deep pockets you can buy porn.tv and porno.tv for under 500k....One guy owns both of these gems...i was curious on this and a thread couple weeks back on a .com value vs .tv name..

02-11-2008, 03:59 AM	THREAD STARTER #1 (permalink)
equity78 NamePros Expert Join Date: Oct 2004 Posts: 7,639	Interesting read you think it crazy now READ THIS totally crazy adultvideonews.com avnlive.com Sex.tv, The .tv Corporation at Odds By Kathee Brewer Dec. 20, 2001 LOS ANGELES - Amid accusations of contract breaches, fraudulent business practices, non-payment of debts, and defamation of character, Sex.tv Ltd., a British company that owns "several thousand" domain names ending in .tv, has hired attorney Charles Carreon to protect its rights in a brewing dispute with The .tv Corporation. Carreon is the attorney who represented Sex.com owner Gary Kremen in the epic court battle that eventually returned what has been called "the world's most valuable domain name" to Kremen ????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/dot-tv/430811-interesting-read-you-think-crazy-now.html after it was hijacked by Stephen Cohen. Contacted in Canada on Wednesday, Oregon-based Carreon said Sex.tv Ltd. became concerned about its multi-year contract with The .tv Corporation after the company's president, Fintan O'Rourke, received an email message from The .tv Corporation Senior Director of Sales David J. Rosenbaum. In the email, dated 10 days before payment of the domain's second-year registration fee was due, Rosenbaum queried O'Rourke about his plans for the domain name, asking, "Are you planning to make full payment in time? Are you planning to breach the contract? I have someone else that wants the name, who can send money to arrive next week." Jason Tucker, chief executive of Sex.tv Ltd., called the email extortion and said it seemed to confirm vague rumblings he and O'Rourke had been dismissing as rumor for some time. "Even before Fintan got the email, we were hearing from other people that .tv was trying to pre-sell the domain [in case we didn't pay]," he said. "More specifically, we heard they were going to take [the domain name] back at the end of the year to resell it for more money." According to O'Rourke, if someone is in the wings to buy sex.tv, it wouldn't be the first time. He said The .tv Corporation has offered to sell it to someone else while his company held the contract. "There is significant evidence to prove they've been misrepresenting themselves and trying to sell the name starting three months into the contract," O'Rourke said. "I have the evidence that supports an offer to a German client for $1 million in May of this year." Aviva Rosenthal, corporate communications senior manager for The .tv Corporation, said her company has done nothing illegal or unethical, and they don't expect Sex.tv Ltd.'s protestations to find a willing audience. "It's a non-issue," she said. "The bottom line is we can't pre-sell names; we don't pre-sell names. [Sex.tv Ltd.] is the registrant, and [the company] will continue to be the registrant as long as [it] follows the contract. "The sex.tv domain name, like many other .tv domain names, draws a lot of interest, and it is common for us to receive inquiries on the most popular names from third parties," she said. Carreon said his research into the issue has raised some troubling questions. For one thing, he said The .tv Corporation appeared not to be adhering to the CENTR Best Practice Guidelines for ccTLD Managers as outlined by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. ccTLDs are Country Code Top Level Domain Name registries; The .tv Corporation is one of these by virtue of its contract with the kingdom of Tuvalu, a tiny island nation in the Pacific Ocean about midway between Honolulu, Hawaii, and Brisbane, Australia. Among The .tv Corporation's alleged violations of the ccTLD Managers best practices guidelines are that it is not a resident of the territory to which the ccTLD belongs. According to records maintained by Network Solutions, The .tv Corporation's parent company, TLDs Inc., has corporate headquarters in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and technical offices in Los Angeles. All upper-level management of The .tv Corporation seems to be based in Los Angeles. In addition, the best practices require ccTLD managers to do "a satisfactory job of supervising the operation of the DNS service for the TLD. Duties such as the assignment of domain names, delegation of sub-domains and operation of name servers must be done with technical competence." Carreon said the sex.tv domain "was not functional for quite some time" after it was purchased, apparently due to technical problems at The .tv Corporation. "The hosting problem was virtually insurmountable in Europe for quite a long time," he said, rendering sex.tv unreachable via the World Wide Web. According to Carreon and O'Rourke, there also are indications that The .tv Corporation is not meeting its financial obligations to Tuvalu. O'Rourke said he has been in contact with the Tuvalan royal family about the matter. Essentially, Carreon said, ".tv is renting out cyberspace without paying its mortgage." The .tv Corporation denies the allegation. O'Rourke also is upset with remarks he said a representative of The .tv Corporation made before a tribunal in an unrelated wrongful employment termination hearing earlier this year. "They said I was in 'bad standing' with them," he said. "That's defamation of character. It's not true." Perhaps chief among his complaints, he said, is the tone of the email he received from The .tv Corporation's Rosenbaum. O'Rourke perceived it as threatening: "At the end of the day," Rosenbaum wrote, "I have a revenue figure that I need to manage to [sic] and I don't really care where the money comes from. As you know, Sr. [sic] management will require termination of the agreement and cancellation of the domain if you breach the contract so if you are going to make payment, then please tell me so that I can keep Sr. [sic] management updated." "I wasn't expecting it," O'Rourke said, noting that his company had given The .tv Corporation no reason to doubt that payment would be forthcoming under the deadline. The .tv Corporation spokeswoman Rosenthal said O'Rourke misinterpreted the tone and intention of the email. She also said no one at her office had been contacted by anyone in the Sex.tv Ltd. camp about the matter. Carreon said he left a voicemail message for Rosenbaum on Wednesday. Nothing has been filed at this point, he said; he just wants to talk. "All I want to do is get my guys a fair shake," Carreon said. "Based on my experiences with Sex.com, I know that Internet domain names can be extremely valuable, and that Sex.tv will likely be one of the greats. It's a very ambitious venture that is being taken very seriously. "Domain names are property, and property law applies in cyberspace," he said. "I choose cases based on their potential for setting groundbreaking precedent, and this case has tremendous potential." From: "Kathee Brewer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Gaylor Matthew" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: The plot sickens Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2002 20:50:05 -0800 Continuing strife in the Sex.tv Ltd./.tv Corp. feud, including allegations of fraud, deceptive business practices and cybersquatting. Sex.tv is seeking other .tv domain owners to join the suit, and says it already has several others waiting to do so; a Website has been established for information and contact. As I'm sure you know, The .tv Corporation was bought by Verisign in January. It'll be interesting to see how Verisign responds to this, as another of its subsidiaries, Network Solutions, has been sued by sex.com. Sex.com also alleges fraud, as well as negligence, in the affair that transferred sex.com to an imposter several years ago. The domain was returned to the real owner, San Francisco businessman Gary Kremen, last year in a decision that also ordered the usurper to pay several million dollars in damages. The usurper now claims poverty and an inability to pay the judgment, and he's asked the court to release him from the obligation (no one's sure where the estimated $40 million he made from the Website while he had it went). <http://www.avnonline.com/issues/200202/newsarchive/021202_lead.shtml> Sex.tv Sues .tv Corporation By Kathee Brewer Feb. 12, 2002 LOS ANGELES - <http://www.sex.tv/>Sex.tv disappeared from the Web on Monday, hours after its parent company, Sex.tv Ltd., filed suit against registrar <http://www.tv/>The .tv Corporation in U.S. District Court. The lawsuit alleges fraud, cybersquatting, and deceptive business practices under California and federal statutes. It also seeks to have the court place the domain Sex.tv and the $688,000 paid by Sex.tv Ltd. to The .tv Corporation for domain registration fees in a "constructive trust" pending further action. "Basically, we're saying The .tv Corporation made false statements in order to sell things," said Charles Carreon, attorney for Sex.tv Ltd., a British corporation. "They sold domain names with an implied warranty of merchantability; they represented them as functional when they had no functional IP addresses. They swindled my client and hundreds of thousands of .tv domain name registrants by selling them overpriced domain names that did not work. We are asking the court to order Š The .tv Corporation to cough up what it obtained through fraud, deception, and unfair business practices in violation of California law." According to a prepared statement released by Sex.tv Ltd., the company "is suing on behalf of all domain name purchasers, and includes in its complaints claims for cybersquatting, alleging that The .tv Corporation engaged in a 'protection racket' to register trademarks and 'ransom them back' to trademark owners for inflated prices." The .tv Corporation prices domain names according to "desirability." According to a statement at the registrar's Website, "Most .tv Web addresses can be registered for $50/year. 'Premium' .tv Web addresses are common words and phrases and 1-, 2- and 3-character names. They can be registered at variable prices above $50/year." Recent registrations include drugstore.tv at $500,000, casino.tv at $250,000, and gay.tv and free.tv at $100,000 apiece. Business.tv, movies.tv, news.tv, and sports.tv are available for $1 million each. Sex.tv Ltd. and The .tv Corporation have been at odds over implied and written contractual obligations at least since mid-December, when Sex.tv Ltd. President Fintan O'Rourke received an email message from The .tv Corporation Senior Director of Sales David J. Rosenbaum. In the email, dated 10 days before payment of the domain's second-year registration fee of $325,000 was due, Rosenbaum queried O'Rourke about his plans for the domain name, asking, "Are you planning to make full payment in time? Are you planning to breach the contract? I have someone else that wants the name, who can send money to arrive next week." At the time, Sex.tv Ltd. principals called the email extortive and surprising, as they had not given The .tv Corporation any reason to doubt payment for the domain registration would be forthcoming. Carreon said he has been corresponding with officials of and attorneys for The .tv Corporation since then in an effort to resolve disputes over cooperative advertising, registration fees, and what he and O'Rourke said were fraudulent promises of traffic volume. Amid the negotiations, The .tv Corporation served notice of its intention to revoke the contract with Sex.tv Ltd. to O'Rourke via fax. That was on Jan. 11. Thirty days later, as allowed in the contract, it pulled the DNS registration of the Sex.tv Website on the same day the lawsuit was filed, after Carreon and O'Rourke decided negotiations had reached an impasse and withheld payment of the registration fee. On the same day, a notice appeared on a Web page to which the Sex.tv domain was redirected, stating the domain was for sale at a price of $1 million per year. "I told [The .tv Corporation's attorney] on Thursday that the suit would be filed on Monday," Carreon said. "I received confirmation of the filing around noon on Monday, and at about 2:30 Fintan called me to tell me that the domain had been turned off." O'Rourke said, "We refused to make payment because of [The .tv Corporation's] misrepresentations. We would have no problems making a payment for a domain name and a contract that was everything it should be, but this one hasn't been, and we're not prepared to pay for this domain until they perform the things they promised us." Chief among the breached promises, according to O'Rourke, was that Sex.tv garnered 25 percent of all traffic entering domains within The .tv Corporation's realm, or 625,000 hits per month. "That kind of traffic would have represented about $1 million a year in revenues for us," O'Rourke said, but in actuality, "we have achieved no more than two or three hundred hits per day." Another complaint involves the functionality of the domain, especially in Europe. Carreon said technical difficulties within The .tv Corporation prevented Sex.tv from being reached via the World Wide Web at least until April 2001, even though Sex.tv Ltd. purchased the domain in December 2000 and did everything in its power to make it live immediately. O'Rourke and Carreon said they are convinced that Sex.tv Ltd. is not the only company to suffer at the hands of The .tv Corporation. They expect other parties to join Sex.tv Ltd.'s lawsuit within weeks. A Website has been established at <http://www.suingdottv.com/> to provide information about the suit and facilitate contact for those who might wish to join. "[The .tv Corporation has] clearly defrauded may hundreds of thousands of people throughout the world," O'Rourke said, noting that he has spoken with other .tv domain owners who are as disgruntled as he is with The .tv Corporation. "No matter how much [a registrant] has spent, .tv has an obligation to perform, and we want this suit to convince them of that." Carreon and O'Rourke said Sex.tv Ltd. views the domain shutdown as retaliation for the lawsuit. "The .tv Corporation has been in bad faith since the beginning, and this latest turn is their usual M.O.," Carreon said. ".tv should do the right thing now that they have Verisign behind them and pay some bills." Verisign bought The .tv Corporation in January for $35 million. Lynn Thai, marketing director for The .tv Corporation, said the ????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t=430811 company had "no comment" about Sex.tv or the lawsuit. Kathee Brewer Technology Editor AVN Online/TCI 9414 Eton Ave. Chatsworth, CA 91311 Voice: (409) 765-0172 Fax: (818) 718-5799 E-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> URL: <http://www.avnonline.com/> __________________________________________________ ____ AVNOnline.com: Daily news and resources are just a click away. ************************************************ ********************** __________________ Host your website with name.com and get up to $10.99 off any domain registration First Quarter 2012 5 letter.com sales report

02-11-2008, 04:23 AM	#2 (permalink)
*Makis.TV* Business Member Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Glyfada, Greece Posts: 2,826 Follow @makismour	its old news, rite? __________________ Check your Speed Test in just a few seconds Domain blogging, hosting tips, wordpress theme reviews and development Kids and Teens Alopecia Online Convert your psd layout 2 joomla template

02-11-2008, 04:26 AM	#3 (permalink)
domainacrobat Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: USA Posts: 3,669	Wow still taking it all in... Since its dated wayback I sure hope things are a little more transparent since then... __________________ Outlets.Tv Decorator.TV Lifeguard.Tv Lifeguards.Tv Cosmetologist.tv Paleontology.Tv Paddling.Tv Surfboard.TV Baseballs.Tv Basketballs.Tv FightChannel.Tv StockPhotography.Tv TwentyOne.Tv HairStylists.tv A Sea of .Tv

02-11-2008, 04:27 AM	#4 (permalink)
mckennaronnie Senior Member Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: no telling ye Posts: 2,281	wow what a mess! Not really the type of healines we want to see for one of the top .tv's, i really hope they get this sorted out and sex.tv really makes a mark but judging by all the claims & counter claims then nothing will be sorted anytime soon. Stories like this just cast more doubts in investors eyes, many already dont trust or understand the premium renewal system so stories about false promises & trying to sell domains while they are owned could scare off 1000's of potential buyers forever. __________________ Im back, did you miss me??

02-11-2008, 04:30 AM	THREAD STARTER #5 (permalink)
equity78 NamePros Expert Join Date: Oct 2004 Posts: 7,639	OH this was 6 years ago RONNIE, SEX.tv ltd does not exist from extensive research I did all night. A company from Italy owns the domain since 2002 registered for 20 years __________________ Host your website with name.com and get up to $10.99 off any domain registration First Quarter 2012 5 letter.com sales report

02-11-2008, 04:42 AM	THREAD STARTER #7 (permalink)
equity78 NamePros Expert Join Date: Oct 2004 Posts: 7,639	I spent hours searching there is nothing on what happened, not sure what you mean not used SEX.tv is a fully run site and listed on Lyngsat as having satellite capability __________________ Host your website with name.com and get up to $10.99 off any domain registration First Quarter 2012 5 letter.com sales report

02-11-2008, 05:13 AM	#8 (permalink)
smashfactory Domain Goddess Join Date: Feb 2006 Posts: 4,084	wow- that was some wild reading __________________ BOO!

02-11-2008, 06:55 AM	#9 (permalink)
SKG Senior Member Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Bands.TV Posts: 2,783 Follow @bands_tv	The hijacking of traffic still exists today. Many of my domains revert back to the me tv platform even though they are set to forward elsewhere. At least 25 percent of traffic is being lost to domains that are being forwarded. I am speaking of forwarding not dns changing. This was brought to Enom's attention by someone I know and they cannot figure out why except to say something is wrong and we are working on it. Problem is this: the domain owners are paying premium and traffic is being lost at not other than our cost. I cannot say this holds true for actual dns changes but with absolute certainty I can say this is happening when .tv domains are forwarded and this is very sad to say the least. __________________ Blue.tv

02-13-2008, 03:30 AM	#10 (permalink)
Rogor NamePros Regular Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Ontario Posts: 253	whew, now that's what I call bad press. Talk about getting off on the wrong foot. somewhat offtopic- Is anyone keeping track of Tuvalu's current mood? They could have a lot to say in 7 years time. Last edited by Rogor; 02-13-2008 at 03:34 AM.

02-13-2008, 07:55 AM	#12 (permalink)
jeffoverman Senior Member Join Date: Aug 2007 Posts: 3,348	wow.....thanks in taking the time to research this raymond and posting.......surly was an intense reading..... talking about this area-the big boys here and there are a couple that are here with deep pockets you can buy porn.tv and porno.tv for under 500k....One guy owns both of these gems...i was curious on this and a thread couple weeks back on a .com value vs .tv name.. __________________ Save Your Money On .Co and buy a nice .com name in the after market!

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