Afternic to sell Fabulous domains

[goodkarmaco]

I looked around and did not see a post about this, but if there is one already please excuse.

Afternic and Buydomains have entered an agreement with Fabulous.com to offer its 500,000 plus domains for sale.

http://www.dailydomainer.com/200739...bulouscom-to-sell-500000-domains.html#more-39

 

[JMJ]

Their names have been listed on there since they bought it. I even made mention of it in the Afternic purity thread that between the two of them a small timer doesn't have much of a chance selling on there anymore. I guess they just needed some PR. Whats amusing about it is fabulous is known for it's gambling and adult PPC and my understanding is atleast one of the owners has some interest in gambling related sites. I guess aslong as you don't do the dirty business yourself you can still do business with those doing the dirty deeds.

 

[BrandYourself]

lololo did i spell hypocrisy correctly?

 

[goodkarmaco]

JmJ

You are hitting it on the nail. The names in Fabulous will include tons of adult, gambling and poker domains. To be true to their stated mission, Afternic and Buydomains should not be invloved in even one sale of those types if they " do not want to promote hate and violence" by brokering gambling or adult domains.

I have full respect for Fabulous, but I am wondering why they are giving this big contract to them. They (Afternic) are not selling many names now.

I use to think I might have a good chance of selling my names in Fabulous, so I placed some that I parked with them for sale. Now I am not confident at all about the ones I have there for sale.

 

[Keynes]

Fabulous has a large portfolio of generic names outside of adult/gaming; in fact, their portfolio is primarily composed of the former, and they are only known for the latter b/c they offer solid PPC on those topics via ROAR/PPC. Most likely, only non-vice generics will be added to Afternic.

 

[RareIQ]

Afternic is becoming a giant

 

[Broker]

I just got an email back from great domains saying they would be great for afternic, but not great domains. Sent a couple of my best names to. Way better imho then a few names listed on GDomains. O well.

 

[Keynes]

Afternic is becoming a giant

Well, BuyDomains is really...

 

[PLamson]

Fabulous Names on BuyDomains & Afternic

All:

Thought I would quickly jump in here and clarify how the partnership between NameMedia and Fabulous will work. No third party will be able to list vice names (Adult, Gambling, Abusive Violence, etc.) for sale on BuyDomains or Afternic. Any company listing names for sales on a NameMedia domain resale platform must omit vice names from the names they choose to list with NameMedia.

Hope this helps.

As always, I am happy to talk anytime. Direct dial is 781 839 2812.

Best Regards,

Pete Lamson

 

[Mike Robertson]

At this stage, through this partnership we will only be selling domains from our own portfolio. For more information, see this News Item .

Cheers,

Mike
Fabulous.com

 

[goodkarmaco]

About Afternic not selling vice domains, thats a joke.

Every day they have names for sale in that category. Visit home page today and see some gambling names for sale in THE CLOSING section of home featured. I am afraid they can't manage their stated goals very well. Whats it take for a person that worked there to daily look thru names listed and delete certain names?.

The only reason I am saying this is it is way beyond not being fair for members to have certain names they own pulled, yet daily many names go thru their system. I mean come on, how can names like found today in "home featured" go unnoticed. Names like

isportsbook.mobi
bestoddsinvegas.com
chicagosportslive
bestgamepicks.com
booking.com

Bad management I suppose. It took me five minutes to spot those names. Don't they have staff that should manage the new rules?

 

[PLamson]

Good Karmaco:

Thanks for pointing this out - much appreciated.

We should in fact not be showing any vice names for sale - we are looking into this today to determine what caused the systems problem.

Keep the feedback coming - it helps!

As always, feel free to call me anytime on 781 839 2812.

Pete

 

[goodkarmaco]

You are welcome Plamson and its encouraging to see this response. My issue is its not a one time mistake. This has been going on since day one.

Roderick

 

[danielr]

goodkarmaco (Rod)

I had a long talk with the Senior Exec from Buy Domains at the Domain Fest in Hollywood last week.

He did not come out and directly say it but it was leaked by other sources that Name Media will be going public soon. BuyDomains had to borrow the money to buy afternic and the investors wanted to get rid of the vice names... and I can understand why. I don't agree with it because bankers are not domainers and I do not want a banker telling me how to do my business.

Fabulous or DarkBlue has been public for some time and their stock DBS on the ASX has done very well. BuyDomains is the larges single company of domains and Fabulous is right behind them... ( I personally own 8000 names now and I wonder if I am even in the top 100).

And I believe that Fabulous had a ton of names listed on Afternic and has had them listed on afternic for a very long time. I have also seen many fabulous names listed on SEDO as well. Large portfolio owners want to sell names and the more places they advertise or list their names for sale the better chance they have.

 

[PLamson]

Follow Up

Good Karmaco:

We are continually refining our vice names filters - this is admitedly a work in progress, although one we continue to see improvement on.

The issue that that there no 100% fool proof technology based solution - and reviewing 2MM names + manually was very cumbersome task as you might imagine. There is also an element of subjectivity to this task that is equally challenging.

Anytime one of your names has been removed for reasons you do not agree with, I encourage you to contact Afternic directly, as they will be very reasonable in their response. You can also contact me at any time on the phone number listed above.

We removed isportsbook.mobi today, and have elected to keep the 4 other domains in saleable inventory.

Keep the feedback - positive or negative - coming!

Pete

 

[goodkarmaco]

Hello crowd surfing Daniler!

Great summation of the the situation about Afternic, Buydomains and Fabulous.

Pete, are you sure everyone is going to be pleased with managements decision to remove names from their portfolios that are very simalar to names owned by Afternic partners? The names they had removed are not as important as the ones Afternic is leaving in?.

Does anyone see this as a pat on the back for certain partners?. So I guess these names have nothing to do with gambling?


bestoddsinvegas.com
chicagosportslive
bestgamepicks.com
booking.com

Publicly leaving those names and saying they are O.K. to stay in Afternic does not spell a pretty word. To me it spells favouritism.

No, I will not be contacting Aternic to ask pretty please if certain of my names may stay in. I see that they play cards that are stacked in their favour. I have closed my account and removed all my names from the site, after the way they refused to provide a time period for the new policy and how they labeled the industry that certain names were not "to industry standards".

It seems domain names that promote hate and violence are O.K. to have if the partners own them.

All I can say is if my names were still in Aftenic, I would not be very happy seeing names like the above staying in to benefit Fabulous, Buydomains or Afternic. That decision says it all.

 

[JMJ]

Before I step further into this I'm going to state that I've had an afternic account for over 4 years now but I aswell delisted all my names. I've done business wth Buy Domains and currently do business with fabulous. In fact I just registered a name there 10 minutes ago. I understand we all want to sell names and we all are going to have various business models. To each his own.

I tried to be objective in my decision to not list my names and actually considered relisting them but then I went to the site and saw under newly listed names that fabulous was loading their names up. This was also during the time loads of other names were being purged. I then went and did various searches and saw (and still see) that the largest percentage of keyword returns were either owned by BD or Fab. Grant it their names are likely listed at the other places we all sell at and they have alot more names than I do and most of us combined but it isn't as obvious as it is at Afternic now. The way I have to compare me doing business there would be abit like Walmart moving in nextdoor to my drug store. Grant it Walmarts motives may seem politically correct and they can sell the prescriptions at whatever they wish but the reality is it's a loss leader and my drugstore can't compete at $4 a prescription.

I've said it before and I'll say it here again. Buy Domains choosing to no longer sell their own "vice" names is their own right to decide. Afternic on the otherhand is suppose to be a marketplace. A marketplace which should be independant of the personal and/or political views of it's owners especially since the members who sell there are paying to list their names whether they be vice or not. Afternic is a seperate entity and should be treated as so. Your company and it's investors aren't selling the names. You are conducting a transaction on other peoples dealings. We do business on the World Wide Web not the US web.

This move isn't a standard that I as a community member wants to see being taken by a "community leader." The next thing we'll see is our "leaders" buying up registries and deciding they don't want our "vice" names registered there.. There is no difference between the two.

Simply put it's not just the one thing. It's all things combined.

In a curious 2 second search resulted in the following. I didn't clean up my search returns so obviously all names aren't "vice". I'll admit you did pretty good in returns I was hoping for more but then I saw a tell tell sign which made me do a whois.

gambleone.com
gambli.com
gamblino.com
gamblog.com
gamblz.com
astrogamble.com
gamblinace.com
gamblinreno.com
mbagamble.com
nbagamble.com
sportsgamblin.com
dontgamblewithgovernment.com
gamblinbaseball.com
gamblinfootball.com
onlinegamblingcommission.com
ourgamblewithgovernment.com
whygamblewithgovernment.com
nevergamblewithgovernment.com
stopgamblingwithgovernment.com
gambled.net
gambled.info
gamblinaces.com
houstongamblers.com
gamble-xl.com
howtostopgambling.com
gamblingaddictiontreatmentcenters.com
gamblign.net
takeagamble.net
gamblingr.us
gamble-online.org


Feel free to PM or email me if you wish to cleanse yourself of more "vice" names I'll be glad to take them off your hands.

 

[PLamson]

GK:

The process by which we vet names for inclusion or exclusion from a "Vice Name" definition is continually being refined.

When we initially worked through this process, there were some mistakes made - ones that have generally been highlighted on this board.

I can assure you we are continually working to refine and improve both the process and our definitions.

I have no pretense that "everyone will be pleased" with all of the choices we make. There is subjectivity in each name we make a decision on, and this subjectivity is certainly open to public questioning. Many names are not simply "black or white".

One thing I can assure you - and you will continue to have my word on as long as I am responsible for this business - is that there is zero favoritism in the process or anywhere in our Markeplace. Zero. Our goal is to create a fair and equal marketplace, giving our members the highest probability of selling their name for the most amount of money.

Companies looking to capitalize on this objective who list many names with us with likely have an equal percentage representation of all types of names across all issues that a smaller portfolio owner might. You have my word that both will be treated the same. Again - we do not play favorites in our marketplace and never will.

I am very willing to discuss this in greater detail at anytime, and can be reached at 781 839 2812. I would welcome the opportunity to speak further with any of you.

Best Regards,

Pete

 

[Sam]

How sad it is. Afternic a once prosperous company now just a pawn for buydomains to sell their cr_p to the mass consumer. I am NEVER going to renew my fee again.

 

[goodkarmaco]

You can't, but I can.

Plamson,

You have a unique way with words. The way I see it domainers are not "buying" the words. The reason is they have no meaning anymore.

Why would they? You see I do not agree with you that you are continually working to define your definitions. You are saying one thing and doing another. You cannot support the policy by saying members cannot import gambling domains into Afternic for sale and yet you want to sell certain ones in that auction house.

That is like saying you think gambling is immoral and then at the same time go on the town and visit a Casino. Policy is not to be bent. Not if it is not bent for everyone. If policy is side stepped by management then it is my hope many see that as hypocrital.

By the way, I am all for gambling, and adult domains. I am not a very large business and when I see very large corporations prospering saying one thing and doing quite another, I get encouragement.

I am encouraged that since I will not compromise my ethics and I see how properous a person can get in this business by slacking in the ethics dept., I know my efforts will be even more rewarded.

If the big shocking announcement came to only this, ( you can't but we can) why would we devote our business to helping Afternic? I have no problems with Fabulous, its nothing to do with them, they are just trying to sell more names.

Management style with Afternic is not holding to the high standards of the domain business. To me good management is by setting an example. You cannot do that by allowing those names to be sold in Afternic. Not if you have the current policy of not allowing them to be imported by members.

Frankly, to think it is o.k. is really a slap in the face to domainers, those who support this industry.

I am sorry for saying this if you are a domain owner of some of those names. I can understand wanting to sell your domain.

But that being said, you will have to agree that you will have no fair playing field if management of Buydomains or Afternic can choose to list obvious gambling domains, yet other domainers have no choice but to remove their domains from the site. Maybe this all can be solved by allowing adult and gambling names to be sold or parked by Afternic members. That would be the ideal solution.

Why not, seems Afternic's management is on board now with the idea to sell gambling domains, (just don't tell anyone") as the names did not just appear in the auction house, ( hope nobody notices) but were listed for sale. We also know the software was not the cause of those gambing domains appearing for sale. No, that was a management decision. Sure, go ahead sell porn names, gambling names, xxx, betting names, poker names.

Plamson, I like the fact that you are making a dialogue. Just don't say one thing and do another. Since you think it is o.k. now to sell gambling domains, then make it o.k. for Afternic members to do so too!

No way will I agree that the way it is now is o.k., even if you use flowery prose to convince me otherwise.