IT.COM

.ART registry issues

NameSilo
Watch

canvasboutique

Established Member
Impact
136
Hello everyone,

This is my first post at NamePros, referred here by the very knowledgeable Mike at Domain Sherpa.

I'm having issues with one of the nTLD Registries, namely Art dot Art who have had found themselves out of their depth with running a professional Registry over the last 48 hours since opening their doors to professional members of the Art industry for domain name registrations, prior to general public release. They have now temporarily shut down their service.

I registered a very good four letter domain name ****.ART with them 48 hours ago for £289. The order was processed in which I received an email and payment accepted in full.

The problem came several hours later when .ART cancelled my registration saying that my purchase was on an "unpublished list" and should not have been available for registration.

Is this common place with domain name Registries or simply bad practice? I suspect that they are seeing what is of interest, cancel and will re-list at 10 or 20 times the original value. They have yet to clarify where in their T&C they are allowed to, without good reason, revoke a registration.

I'm aware that some Registry's are very honourable when it comes to domain name registrations and "mistakes" on their end:

17928-club-sells-200000-domain-for-10-99

I look forward to your replies and possibly applying pressure to any Registry to honour their agreements, else they come across as unprofessional and not trustworthy.


Many thanks,

Derrick
 
2
•••
The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
Hi Derrick,
Welcome to NamePros! A similar thing happened to me the other day, with a ccTLD registration via Web4Africa an ICANN accredited registrar, which I posted about, but unfortunately no one on NamePros responded so I wasn't able to get any insight into my issue which seems very similar to your experience! I'm sorry to hear about your .art registration and you can read my post in the ccTLD forum if the below link doesn't work.
Good Luck to you!
Steve
https://www.namepros.com/threads/web4africa-business-practices.1000126/
 
1
•••
Hi Derrick,
Welcome to NamePros! A similar thing happened to me the other day, with a ccTLD registration via Web4Africa an ICANN accredited registrar, which I posted about, but unfortunately no one on NamePros responded so I wasn't able to get any insight into my issue which seems very similar to your experience! I'm sorry to hear about your .art registration and you can read my post in the ccTLD forum if the below link doesn't work.
Good Luck to you!
Steve


Thanks Steve. Thankfully, I've never had issues in the past with dot ng (with Web4Africa), registering a couple of hacked keywords for another business interest of mine (that I eventually let go) but yes...both our cases/experiences seem remarkably similar in a Registry/Registrar arbitrarily cancelling purchases, claiming some error at their end - one that we cannot verify.

Keep pushing, keep applying pressure until they either relent or demonstrate that their T&C allow them to act in that way.

As someone who has operated a URL redirection service before (with over 250,000 members), it really is kids-play to run a domain name registry and reserve certain words, whether a clash of interest / provocative / offensive/trademarks etc. With that past experience of operating URL redirection and monitoring name registrations, that why it smells like a coastal dock when a Registry cancels a domain name registration, through no fault of the registrant's action. I expect my domain name purchase to be available soon at 20x it's original value or reserved for a later exclusive promotion.

Without reading in fine detail of ICANN policies at this time or a Registry's own T&Cs, I can't imagine that ICANN approve of what first appears to be unprofessional conduct, that leads to understandable trust issues with a registry. I'm already experiencing on twitter some members of the .art community shocked by the introductory £289 pricing that also extends to just short of £5,100 for a domain name.

That's why I cited the case with dot club. What a great registry for honouring the registrant's purchase after admitting that the registry made a mistake.

So, dot Art / Instra - would you care to comment and follow .club's example?
 
2
•••
Is this common place with domain name Registries or simply bad practice?

Both. Don't forget they are domainers themselves.

Without reading in fine detail of ICANN policies at this time or a Registry's own T&Cs, I can't imagine that ICANN approve of what first appears to be unprofessional conduct, that leads to understandable trust issues with a registry.

Unfortunately they allow it about it or at least pretend that it isn't happening. Registries can do what they want when it comes to this. You don't own the domain but you lease it from the registry.
 
Last edited:
3
•••
Both. Don't forget they are domainers themselves.


Unfortunately they allow it about it or at least pretend that it isn't happening. Registries can do what they want when it comes to this. You don't own the domain but you lease it from the registry.

Yes, I appreciate and understand that domain registration is about "leasing" than "ownership" and their discriminatory / selective behaviour in who they lease to and for how much is more common place than I first realised. I'm more than happy to lease and renew on an annual basis, whilst meeting their T&C for usage and ownership.

My understanding is that if they believe they can increase their profit, they'll cancel the registration and inflate the price. It's that activity that I find distrustful and if it's the case, I feel it should be more public knowledge how certain Registries behave. Not all should be tarnished by the same brush, where I've read that .CLUB honoured a registration as a result of the Registry making a mistake.

So, ICANN turn a blind eye on Registries that try to pull a quick one...?
There must be some kind of governance buried deep in their literature. (Looks like some late bedtime reading is needed)

Has anyone read or does their exist specific details / policies regarding Registry compliance and expected behaviour in accordance with defined ICANN standards or has it become the case of do what you want?
 
0
•••
My understanding is that if they believe they can increase their profit, they'll cancel the registration and inflate the price. It's that activity that I find distrustful and if it's the case, I feel it should be more public knowledge how certain Registries behave. Not all should be tarnished by the same brush, where I've read that .CLUB honoured a registration as a result of the Registry making a mistake.
Exactly, that's why I will not give Web4Africa any business ever again, as I feel as I was a victim of a bait and switch, and I'll be sure to mention, their peculiar form of customer service to new customers, to anybody and everybody that wants to know about Web4Africa!
 
1
•••
Exactly, that's why I will not give Web4Africa any business ever again, as I feel as I was a victim of a bait and switch, and I'll be sure to mention, their peculiar form of customer service to new customers, to anybody and everybody that wants to know about Web4Africa!

Yes, bait and switch.

"There is no such thing as bad publicity" springs to mind, although a quoted expression that I don't agree with. I'm all in favour of spreading the word on businesses (whether domain name related or not) that operate bad practice or just simply incompetent. Thanks for the heads-up with Web4Africa who I'll also be wary of in the future.

Less than a few hours in and .ART have closed their doors to new business and rejecting existing business, whilst having taken our money and likely going to inflate prices further still that they become like many other registries sat on reserved domain names with a $50k price-tag. It takes over 1 hour to get a response from them in LIVE CHAT and even then, they don't answer your question, effectively clueless. Call Sales directly and it's amazing how they suddenly have access to the authoritative whois, able to determine what is reserved vs available...at their discretion...as they take time to think about it.

I feel that less than the infinite monkey theorem of monkeys randomly hitting a typewriter to produce the complete works of Shakespeare can operate a nTLD better than so-called professionals.

DomainNameWire have now covered the story of .ART closing their site to new registrations and how their (John Matson, CEO of UK Creative Ideas - Registry for .art) story doesn't add up...because they're using the same backend at CentralNIC that .XYZ used...without problem.
 
Last edited:
1
•••
Thanks for all the info on the .art fiasco as it is certainly fascinating! Good Luck getting your registration or at least your money back in a timely fashion once they figure out what the heck is going on over there!
 
1
•••
Thanks for all the info on the .art fiasco as it is certainly fascinating! Good Luck getting your registration or at least your money back in a timely fashion once they figure out what the heck is going on over there!

I have little doubt that I'll get my money refunded in the usual next 3-5 days but, as I'm sure we all know, that's not the point or good enough. If this pans out as I expect with them obstructing and refusing to listen, then I'll slam them at every given opportunity in the future.

It feels a little bit like bait and switch or shill bidding, which is a practice frowned upon, where I believe they will now hike the price up from £289 to £5,100 or £25,000. At this time, we can only guess what the future will have in store but I strongly believe that dot ART like WEB4AFRICA are trying to pull a quick one.

Prove me wrong dot ART / INSTRA and I'll gladly apologise.

Thanks Steve for giving me a little insight with your own experiences and how many of us appear to be struggling to get heard or protected, as domain name registrars and registries fail to honour their agreements.
 
1
•••
Is this common place with domain name Registries or simply bad practice?

Yes, it's BS.

I suspect that they are seeing what is of interest, cancel and will re-list at 10 or 20 times the original value.

Exactly.

The .blog Bait & Switch

http://chrisschidle.com/the-dot-blog-bait-and-switch/

They have yet to clarify where in their T&C they are allowed to, without good reason, revoke a registration.

>:(
 
Last edited:
2
•••
Screwups happens, but that kind of stuff tends to repeat itself.
 
2
•••
Just like any other private business starting up, all these new TLDs will have a 50 per cent chance of going out of business in two or three years,” Holland says. “That’s going to be somewhat disquieting to people.

Byron Holland, CEO of CIRA.
 
1
•••
Byron is spot on and it appears I'll be returning .ART the favour of being obstructive, so good luck to them on lasting 2 to 3 years.




In respect of my original post, I can confirm that .ART were very fast at taking my money.

It took them a little time in their office to think ~"hey, this guy has just registered FINE dot ART. Woah, that's clearly worth more than £289 - let's cancel his registration, reserve the domain name for ourselves and increase the price many-fold and tell him it's on an *cough* unpublished list *evil grin*"

But, all credit to them, they have been very fast at issuing a refund over the weekend, which has already cleared my bank than the usual 3-5 working day wait.

Do I see anything available in the .ART database that's worth registering at this time for the prices they're asking? No.
They've price-jacked a lot of names that were previously available or they have now made them unavailable.

The refund was never in doubt but it's a refund and hassle that I didn't want or ask for...

I simply want .ART and other Registries to honour registrations and for governing bodies such as ICANN to add and enforce considered consumer protection.


To date, I've been unimpressed by the service provided by .ART who have demonstrated that they cannot operate a simple Registry having been forced to temporarily close down, crowd-sourced their pricing model from potential customers in exchange for a registration token and used bait and switch tactics to fleece their target customers or create a prohibitively expensive barrier to entry.

As has been pointed out, there is plenty of competition in the name space whether it's .gallery, .design, .services, .rentals, .business, .website, .site, .store, .shop, or .club or the one that nothing comes close to...dot com. There's a lot of cost-effective ways in which developers can find *creative alternatives* to their desired domain name and take their money elsewhere.

Enjoy the General Public land rush when it finally arrives with slim pickings or adopt my policy of greeting .ART with two fingers. It's the same gesture that they give some of their customers.
 
2
•••
Thanks for the follow up Derrick! That's total B.S. Please let us know when Fine dot Art is again released to the public and at what inflated price? Thanks!
P.S. I registered TheFineArt.Shop last month!
 
Last edited:
1
•••
You're welcome and I'll certainly be keeping an eye on what they do with it and other *now* reserved domain names in the future. I'll also post an update in the future once they clarify their new prices but right now, I'm not sure whether they know whether they're coming or going.

I doubt their explanation (in particular with lack of figures) that they were overwhelmed by traffic, when I suspect it's more down to incompetence and not being ready for handling and accepting customer requests.

At the time of writing, I should also comment that I've not once seen their whois working properly, although is available if you try other sources using captcha.

eg: whois art . art
store . art/services/whoisSearchPage

response : art . art WHOIS Information
Connect failed to: whois . nic . art


[insert some relevant expletive adjective phrase here on their service]

What a small world in registering something similar and proof that there's plenty of alternatives. :D



note: (I cannot post links so have added spaces)
 
1
•••
Following this thread- I was wondering what they were planning to do with these super-premium domains since a lot of the terms I was searching for turned out 'unavailable.' I was very hopeful for .art to become one of the more successful new TLDs (it seems more attractive to me than most others because it's short). I also appreciated their intention to allow the art community first dibs. But this is a pretty rough start for them...

Meanwhile, tried some variations on fine.art,just out of curiosity- finer.art: $5772.00, seriously?
 
2
•••
Following this thread- I was wondering what they were planning to do with these super-premium domains since a lot of the terms I was searching for turned out 'unavailable.' I was very hopeful for .art to become one of the more successful new TLDs (it seems more attractive to me than most others because it's short). I also appreciated their intention to allow the art community first dibs. But this is a pretty rough start for them...

Meanwhile, tried some variations on fine.art,just out of curiosity- finer.art: $5772.00, seriously?

I also like it for the it's 3 character extension, which is ideal for Twitter links.

Ha, that's laughable. I did try fyne dot art (available at the base price of £289.99) but it's wrong that customers should be looking at misspellings or double word combinations before the Registry has even gone public properly.

What I don't know at this time is whether they've given "early adopters" (predominantly Museums) freebies or over-charged them. Most have unique established brands and trademarks anyway, so their names should be protected and rightly so but laughable if they've paid 5 figures and equally laughable if given for free to portray the image of a professionally run Registry that's been accepted.

No matter, you can see what silly prices are being attached to domain names that wouldn't feature on my list of must-have or would be great to use. The whole experience has been a pointless waste of time after the assurance of delivery and support for the Art community. Like most, they are in it for themselves.

Domain names are basically locked down unless you want [yourdistincttradingname] dot Art, in which case...why pay through the nose now? Just wait until the Public land rush and buy at the expected £15-£20 price. Meanwhile, everyone else looks up F dot ART, which they should really forward to their equally pungent customer service.
 
2
•••
My best guess is they didn't plan well enough for the limited access period and they are probably still figuring out what to do with the golden names they're holding back. I don't have any problem with a registry holding back names and/or offering some at premium prices - from both the registry and the end user point of view, that makes most sense, lest the bulk of great names end up in the hands of speculators. That is where I see the death of most other new TLDs- hardly any decent names ever end up in the hands of end users.

A well-managed registry can release premium names at auction or decent premium prices - I think most end users would be willing to pay a few hundred to a few thousand dollars for a great name they can buy from a trusted source. I love what .FILM is doing, for example - restricted registrations, prices high enough to keep them out of the hands of speculators who buy by the thousands, but still keeping great names at decent prices (many can be found in the hundreds).

However - what you experienced is despicable and in no way excusable. They should have decided before launch what names they would hold back, and there should be transparency as far as what is going to happen with those domains.
 
2
•••
Screwups happens, but that kind of stuff tends to repeat itself.
screwups my a**:xf.smile: once it was in his name it was his
 
0
•••
Back