The Schreier Thread
This is the ongoing dialogue I have been having with Scrhierer over the .asia auctions. See wat you get out of it.
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05/31/2008 02:54 AM
When will pool.com be putting up the answers to exactly how they
acquired so many top domains in .asia. for ridiculous prices,
while acting as the auctioneer.
Dr. Maguire
> Sent: Monday, June 02, 2008 4:34 PM
> Subject: Not Very fishy at all.
>
>
Dr. Maguire
Your recent inquiry through our customer service department has been
escalated to me to respond to. I have in fact posted on a number of
public sites all of the relevant information in regards to this
situation. I am more than delighted to provide you with the same
information as it appears you are also misinformed.
First, Pool.com has not acquired ANY .asia domain names. Pool.com is
an auction agent and throughout all of the auctions we run across all
tlds, the only domains that remain in our possession or those of our
partners are those that customers do not pay for and where we, as a result, are stuck with the registration. In the case of .asia, all unpaid domains are returned to the registry. Pool.com does provide domain
administration and technical services for select customers and in
these cases we may appear as the Admin or Technical contact for a domain
registration. We do not appear as the registrant.
Second, it has been alleged that Pool.com or I (Richard Schreier) have
an ownership interest in Drake Ventures, a company that has
successfully registered a number of .asia domains. As stated publicly, neither I nor Pool.com have any ownership interest in Drake Domains Corporation, Drake
Ventures Limited or Throne Ventures Pty. Ltd. The ongoing allegations
that either Pool.com or I (Richard Schreier) are benefiting from the
registration of domains by Drake Ventures is totally false. I am
further appalled at the notion that I would be referred to as "lucky
rich" or the "domain tycoon".
Third, it has been alleged that Drake Ventures used some kind of
preferred "inside" status with Pool.com to successfully bid on
competitive auctions. Again, as stated publicly, Drake Ventures WON
only 3/21 of the auctions they were in. They LOST the other 18. And
the 3 they WON had no competitive bids against them. There was no bidding knowledge in securing these domains, particularly when you realize
that the applications had to be submitted and approved well in advance of
the auctions being declared. Drake Ventures was provided with the same
list of auction participants as provided to each participant by the DotAsia
Registry as was the case for ALL Sunrise auctions.
Fourth, it is also a matter of public record that bids were placed by
Drake Ventures at the start of an auction and no further bidding was
made once the initial bid had been placed. To act on "inside
information" would suggest that bidding continues once competitive
bids are known. Auction history records, publicly available to all auction
participants, show that Drake Ventures one and only bid for each
auction were submitted on the first day of an auction and no further bidding
occurred.
Fifth, it is true that Drake Ventures has successfully acquired a
number of premium domains, all of which were applied for in the Sunrise
period and were awarded by the registry to Drake Ventures as the one and only application. These had to be verified by the third party independent
agent provided by the registry. Pool.com had no role to play in these
allocations. The information about all of these registrations and the
fact that they DID NOT GO TO AUCTION is all available publicly.
If you would care to do some additional research, I would suggest you
consider looking at the following:
1. The DotAsia SunRise service that will identify under which phase
of release domains were awarded. Recall that the Sunrise Phase was
provided to all applications who could successfully demonstrate a
prior right which had to be validated by an independent agent. Any domain
that was not allocated during the Sunrise period would be eligible for
registration in the subsequent Landrush.
Ref:
http://www.whois.asia/
. The Full List of Closed auctions is also available on the
DotAsia site which lists ALL domains that went to auction, the closing
price and the date of the auction. Any domains NOT listed in this
report were NOT held to auction. If you search for the domains that
were acquired by Drake Ventures you will discover they did not go to
auction and therefore Pool.com played NO ROLE in their award. One
good example, again which I have used publicly, is porn.asia which was
awarded in SR2B and did not go to auction which means the registry
only received a single verified application for this domain during the
sunrise period.
Ref:
http://dotasia.org/about/auctions_schedule/closed_auctions_May26_full.pdf[
Regards
Richard Schreier
Mr. Schreier:
Aside from finding it almost implausible that there was not more than 1 person that would apply for porn.asia or have the knowledge to make their
application verifiable, especially on such a well-know generic, let me expand on my query.
During the initial Sunrise phase, along with a Hong Kong based
partner, we made application for pool.asia. A name substantially similar to
yours except with a different use in mind. Quite frankly, I had never even
heard of your company until 10 days ago, as I am not a domainer, so to speak but a businessman who saw opportunity on .asia domains.
We were never apprised any further on our application, and from
scarce answers available, were eventually able to determine that their would
be auctions on names where multiple applications had been involved.
We were never apprised of any upcoming auctions for our involvement
and my research could not find any completed auction for pool.asia nor any
listing in any who is database.
So where did pool.asia go, who has it and why we never notified? I
understand from a number of people that they have had similar experiences of being seemingly just disregarded and that these have ended up in the
hands of others.
6 days ago, I did a search and it showed pool.asia was available. I
went through the registration process with EuroDNS and after getting
nothing for 4 days, contacted them again only to be told this was an unavailable domain
I own a television studio and am fairly well-renowned for taking on consumer issues of fraud and bringing them to the television platform.
Of course, in journalistic fairness, I contacted you first, as I am more interested in resolution to my problem.
Dr. Maguire
Sent: Tuesday, June 03, 2008 7:22 AM
Subject: RE: Not Very fishy at all.
Dr Maguire,
Thank you for your candid response and obvious clear thought on this
issue. I can't comment on why there would have been limited
applications for some domains during the Sunrise period. But I can
offer you some statistics which may shed some light. Of course you know
that the most recent sale of sex.com was for $14M, you may also know
that sex.eu had more than 215 applications in their Sunrise. Sex.asia,
which only had 5 verified applications (the registry published that
there were 14 initial applications which means that 9 were rejected by
the verification agent) in Sunrise, closed yesterday for about $83K. I
think these numbers simply serve to demonstrate the current market
awareness and perhaps interest for .asia domains. I believe the release
of the TLD is well within the expectations of the registry and so can
only suggest that the lack of applications in Sunrise is more a
reflection of current market attitudes.
I think it also important to explain briefly how the Sunrise domains
were managed. During a very specific period, the registry accepted
applications along with verifiable proof of a prior right claim. These
submissions were made through registrars to the registry operator and
once received were passed along to one of two independent verification
agents. Where more than a single application was received and verified,
the domain was scheduled for auction and the registry informed ALL of
the participants of who qualified and on what prior right. My point in
explaining this is to point out that it would be very difficult indeed
for the registry to arbitrarily decide to eliminate applications and
create "single order" applications where multiple applications were
received in the first place. More so, it would not be in the best
interests of the registry to do so as this would certainly be revenue
limiting. And, as I mentioned before, Pool.com had no role to play in
applications prior to a decision being made by the registry to place the
domain in auction. Any questions you have about how the verification
process or how the management of applications was conducted would best
be addressed to the registry or perhaps their verification agent,
Deloitte Touche (there was a second Hong Kong based verification agent
as well).
I appreciate wondering how a well known domain like porn.asia could only
receive a single verified application during Sunrise but would point out
that if in fact there were additional applications that were somehow
suppressed or ignored by the registry, then those applicants had a
dispute procedure that would allow challenges of the verification agents
decisions. In turn, any resulting auction would be delayed. Not only
would the potential registrant have reason to dispute their application,
so would their registrar who also stood to gain on sales commissions in
the event the domain was awarded to their customer. I am not aware of
any such challenges throughout the Sunrise period although again that
question is better addressed to the registry since Pool.com had no role
to play in that process.
On your second query in regards to "pool.asia", this is one of two
domains for which Pool.com did make explicit applications. We were not
awarded the other one which was not even accepted for the next phase of
public evaluation . Our application was presented as part of the
Pioneer Program for "Partner Pioneers" which occurred in advance of
Sunrise and was held under public scrutiny. There is a lot of public
information on the Pioneer Program at
http://pioneer.domains.asia/index.html. The process essentially
accepted applications for up to two domain names accompanied by a
specific plan of use for the domain.
The interesting part of the Pioneers Program is that the Registry made
all the applications public through ICANNWiki, and encouraged the public
to provide comment and actually vote on whether a pioneer application
should be awarded (39% of the domain names posted to the wiki through
the PDP were voted and commented on by members of the global online
community). You can see the full list of Partner domains at:
http://www.icannwiki.org/DotAsia-Production-Executive-Summary-Grid-Partn
er and will notice most are names of registrars and similar .ASIA
partners. I can't comment on how the registry is currently displaying
the whois information (they suggest the domain is a government reserved
name but I think this may be a limitation at the registry operator
(Afilias) in supporting the Pioneers program) nor can I comment on how
you may have determined the domain was available. Pool.com was advised
on January 15, 2008 that our Pioneer application had been accepted. The
remaining contractual paperwork is still in process.
So, in regards to your Sunrise application for pool.asia, at the time
your application would have been accepted such that in the event a prior
award failed, then the allocation process would naturally cascade into
the next phase of acquisition. So, for example, even a Landrush
application would be accepted for a Pioneer Domain because of the
possibility that it would ultimately not be awarded in the PDP, might
not also be awarded in Sunrise and therefore would cascade into the
Landrush program. The registry has always allowed subsequent phase
applications to be submitted (there has never been any cost at the
registry associated with submitting an application other than
verification fees during Sunrise) to provide for those situations where
a domain does not get awarded in a previous phase.
DotAsia has used many creative ways to try and bring interest to their
TLD. The Pioneer Program was one initial foray that was intended to
build early interest prior to the Sunrise.
Currently, the registry is in "GoLive" status which means any domain not
previously applied for can now be registered on a first come first serve
basis. Any applications accepted now will not result in an auction
unless applications cascade forward from previous phases.
I have seen discrepancies between what some registrars have informed
their customers about domain availability and would suggest that any
domain "check" you would like to perform should be using the DotAsia
whois service (ref:
http://www.whois.asia)
I hope this explanation has helped and indeed welcome any further
questions you may have.
Regards
Richard
This is how far I have gotten but I am not finished, although, it only took him three e-mails to become RICHARD.
A few more and they would be signed Richie or Dicky
