.ASIA Scam by Richard Schreier CEO pool.com

[damagedgoods]

This subject deserves a new thread. The original .asia scam thread is here


Most of the posts there are from frustrated domainers like myself during the .asia registration process debacle, but now that it's over there is clear evidence that in fact the whole process was corrupt.

The details can be found here.

here

In my case I registered bet.asia February 20 2008 and waited patiently for an auction that never came, only to find out that the CEO of the auction company grabbed that name.

Are there any others here who had the same experience as me who can find their domain in Richard Schreier's portfolio? click here for the domain list

 

[netfleet]

I continue to be amazed at how people draw conclusions from information because the conclusion is convenient to further their cause and does not necessarily reflect the true story or more importantly verifiable facts.

I would suggest everyone read the correspondence that I had privately with MaguirePHD and which he posted here. The key points in that narrative are:

- the domains in question were awarded in the Sunrise phase (SR2B to be exact)
- as Sunrise applications, their prior rights had to be validated by a third party, in this case Deloitte Touche
- if only one verified application was received, the single applicant was awarded the domain

Up until this point, neither I nor Pool.com had any role to play in the domain allocation process. This was entirely run by the registry and their verification agents. You might ask how I know this information? It is all available publicly. The whois service will show you that the domain was awarded in Sunrise (SR2B) and the Master Auction Schedule will show the domains were never passed to Pool.com for auction.

If on the other hand multiple applications had been verified, then the registry passed the domains along with the list of applicants to Pool.com for auction. All participants were told by the registry who the other bidders were and the basis of their prior right claim. Any participant had (and still has) the option to challenge the prior right if they so choose.

Finally, of the auctions in which Drake was a participant, they only won 3 and those were won with bids of $10 (again all this information is publicly available if you simply research the list provided by those making the allegations) where the other bidders did not place competitive bids.

Those are the relevent indisputable facts. I challenge anyone to show that Pool.com has compromised the auction process in any way or has used our position as agent of the registry to our advantage.

Well we really can't argue with that.

Until someone can come up with a clear example of where they had a genuine right to apply to a domain via sunrise (ie they had a TM claim verified by Deloitte) but an expected auction never happened, then we must accept that what rasman says is true.

The OP was talking about bet.asia I think but hasn't profided confirmation of the TM and successful application (note distinction between 'application' and 'allocation')

Few things are still worth commenting on though:

1) I'm very surprised there weren't more Sunrise application (genuine ones) for some of these names. But of course unless someone can prove otherwsie we must accept this
2) From rasman's last post it seems that some potantila buyers who had successfully proved their TM claim for sunrise didn't end up bidding. For this quality of names, plus the effort they must have gone to to even apply during sunrise, this amazes me.
3) Interesting that Drake ventures were able to supply TM claim credentials for so many varied domains. Again though if they did (by setting up new companies & applying for TMs in various countries) then they did and that's that. (just wish I'd thought of it myself )
4) The connection between Pool & Drake. This connection exists unquestionably but in itself does not mean anything. In fact one could argue that someone with a connection & therefore intimate knowledge of the .asia domain launch would be more likely to go for domains than the general public. Again there's nothing wrong with that.
5) The changing of whois information by Drake Domains... whilst it smacks of 'covering ones tracks', there's nothing wrong in that. And if they did it to try and limit this argument against them then who can blame them for that.

So whilst those 4 points are all interesting in their own right, they do not constitute proof.

For me, unless other concrete examples emerge, I have changed my opinion somewhat and will believe the Pool guy.

 

[damagedgoods]

Who the H are you? A snake oil salesman?

I continue to be amazed at how people draw conclusions from information because the conclusion is convenient to further their cause and does not necessarily reflect the true story or more importantly verifiable facts.

I would suggest everyone read the correspondence that I had privately with MaguirePHD and which he posted here. The key points in that narrative are:

- the domains in question were awarded in the Sunrise phase (SR2B to be exact)
- as Sunrise applications, their prior rights had to be validated by a third party, in this case Deloitte Touche
- if only one verified application was received, the single applicant was awarded the domain

Up until this point, neither I nor Pool.com had any role to play in the domain allocation process. This was entirely run by the registry and their verification agents. You might ask how I know this information? It is all available publicly. The whois service will show you that the domain was awarded in Sunrise (SR2B) and the Master Auction Schedule will show the domains were never passed to Pool.com for auction.

If on the other hand multiple applications had been verified, then the registry passed the domains along with the list of applicants to Pool.com for auction. All participants were told by the registry who the other bidders were and the basis of their prior right claim. Any participant had (and still has) the option to challenge the prior right if they so choose.

Finally, of the auctions in which Drake was a participant, they only won 3 and those were won with bids of $10 (again all this information is publicly available if you simply research the list provided by those making the allegations) where the other bidders did not place competitive bids.

Those are the relevent indisputable facts. I challenge anyone to show that Pool.com has compromised the auction process in any way or has used our position as agent of the registry to our advantage.

 

[netfleet]

Richard Schreier, CEO of Pool according to his previous posts...

 

[damagedgoods]

Oh, so I was correct!

Richard Schreier, CEO of Pool according to his previous posts...

TM? Trademark on bet? The reason I don't respond to your posts is because you talk nonesense in circles and seem to have nothing to contribute. Just read the posts again.

Well we really can't argue with that.

Until someone can come up with a clear example of where they had a genuine right to apply to a domain via sunrise (ie they had a TM claim verified by Deloitte) but an expected auction never happened, then we must accept that what rasman says is true.

The OP was talking about bet.asia I think but hasn't profided confirmation of the TM and successful application (note distinction between 'application' and 'allocation')

Few things are still worth commenting on though:

1) I'm very surprised there weren't more Sunrise application (genuine ones) for some of these names. But of course unless someone can prove otherwsie we must accept this
2) From rasman's last post it seems that some potantila buyers who had successfully proved their TM claim for sunrise didn't end up bidding. For this quality of names, plus the effort they must have gone to to even apply during sunrise, this amazes me.
3) Interesting that Drake ventures were able to supply TM claim credentials for so many varied domains. Again though if they did (by setting up new companies & applying for TMs in various countries) then they did and that's that. (just wish I'd thought of it myself )
4) The connection between Pool & Drake. This connection exists unquestionably but in itself does not mean anything. In fact one could argue that someone with a connection & therefore intimate knowledge of the .asia domain launch would be more likely to go for domains than the general public. Again there's nothing wrong with that.
5) The changing of whois information by Drake Domains... whilst it smacks of 'covering ones tracks', there's nothing wrong in that. And if they did it to try and limit this argument against them then who can blame them for that.

So whilst those 4 points are all interesting in their own right, they do not constitute proof.

For me, unless other concrete examples emerge, I have changed my opinion somewhat and will believe the Pool guy.

 

[rasman]

Check out the TMs through public sites.

I can't comment on why companies register certain names as trademarks but finding them is pretty easy. For example, the Canadian TRadeMark Office returns 60 results when I did a query for trademarks with the word BET and at least one of them is for the word BET on it's own. The TM is held by some company based in Kingston Ontario. BET.COM is trademarked by a Washington company. I also believe that "Black Entertainment Television" also owns (or owned) the TM for BET.

 

[netfleet]

TM? Trademark on bet? The reason I don't respond to your posts is because you talk nonesense in circles and seem to have nothing to contribute. Just read the posts again.

Are you for real? I talk nonesense in circles and have nothing to contribute? I seem to be one of the few who is approaching this matter with a level, impartial point of view.

I think you struggle to comprehend some of my agruments and therefore they seem, to you, to go 'in circles'

I asked you a very direct Yes or No question.

So, damagedgoods, are you stating you had TM credentials for bet.asia, applied, realised that there would be/were multiple applications, waited for the auction but it never happened? You had a genuine TM claim for bet.asia?

Here it is again, for the record. Now, without 'talking in circles' can you please give us a Yes or a No.

Please someone else tell me I'm making sense.... please !!!

 

[damagedgoods]

I covered that in previous posts.

I can't comment on why companies register certain names as trademarks but finding them is pretty easy. For example, the Canadian TRadeMark Office returns 60 results when I did a query for trademarks with the word BET and at least one of them is for the word BET on it's own. The TM is held by some company based in Kingston Ontario. BET.COM is trademarked by a Washington company. I also believe that "Black Entertainment Television" also owns (or owned) the TM for BET.

 

[likepeas]

wow. is there anything you can do for a reauction maybe ?

 

[rasman]

One final comment...

MaGuire, you said:

"The auction matter is that:

There are quite a few of us who applied for names that were being sent to auction due to the multiple application rule.

We were never notified of the auction.

Cannot find the domains listed in any auction.

And the auctioneer now has them.

Doc"

And I offered you the following facts which you still chose to ignore:

- you were not notified of an auction because no auction was held
- the domains were awarded in the Sunrise period where your application did not qualify
- you can't find the domains listed in any auction because they did not got to auction
and finally,
- Pool.com does not own and is not the registrant of these domains, the "auctioneer" does not have them

 

[damagedgoods]

I will reply to you directly with more detail of my position to the email that you provided tomorrow. Since you made this post, however, could you state for the record, since you mentioned Black Entertainment Network, as I had also in a previous post, did they secure that name? If so, was it within these timelines? More importantly, would you state for the record, that you don't have any ownership or interest in bet.asia or any other name on this List?

Dot-Asia Timeline:

October 9, 2007 -January 31, 2008
Sunrise 1: Government Reserved Names

October 9, 2007 -October 30, 2008
Sunrise 2a: Exact Registered Trademarks applied for before March 16, 2004

November 13, 2007 - January 31, 2008
Sunrise 2b: Exact Registered Trademarks applied for before December 6, 2006

Sunrise 2c: Any domain name containing a Registered Trademark in the domain name

Sunrise 3: Registered Entity Names (company names, etc.)

February 20, 2008 - March 12, 2008 I registered bet.asia february 20 2008 when did BET reg it? Who won the auction that I wasn't invited to?
Landrush Auction

March 26, 2008
Go Live - first-come, first-served registrations

I can't comment on why companies register certain names as trademarks but finding them is pretty easy. For example, the Canadian TRadeMark Office returns 60 results when I did a query for trademarks with the word BET and at least one of them is for the word BET on it's own. The TM is held by some company based in Kingston Ontario. BET.COM is trademarked by a Washington company. I also believe that "Black Entertainment Television" also owns (or owned) the TM for BET.

 

[rasman]

For the record...

For the record, I do not have any ownership or interest in bet.asia or any other name on the list you posted. I have stated such previsouly and will continue to defend this position.

And as far as the "Black Entertainment Network" is concerned, I know nothing about them, I merely was demonstrating that with a simple public query it was very easy to find a TM holder for "BET", and that was only in Canada. So it is not surprising that DotAsia would receive applications for what many of us might consider "generic" words but are held as TMs by someone.

You also asked:
"February 20, 2008 - March 12, 2008 I registered bet.asia february 20 2008 when did BET reg it? Who won the auction that I wasn't invited to?
Landrush Auction"


There was no auction. The public whois service (http://www.whois.asia/) provided by DotAsia indicates that bet.asia was registered 31-Mar-2008 19:00:34 UTC and it was registered in Sunrise (SR2B) based on a trademark registered in 2005.

 

[MaguirePhD]

Rasman:

Sunrise 2a: Exact Registered Trademarks applied for before March 16, 2004

The partner that I had in Hong Kong fell under this category and there was only one category before that which was reserved for the government.

So, are you stating that we were not eligible because the governement took this in the first Sunrise phase. If so, can someone explain to me how pool.asia is a strategic government name?

Okay, then who has pool.asia because I cannot find it in any Who Is directory?

And if it was taken by the governement and is NOW in the hands of an individual, this may be a bigger matter than I envisioned.

So, someone solve this mystery: Who has pool.asia???

Doc

 

[damagedgoods]

For the record, I do not have any ownership or interest in bet.asia or any other name on the list you posted. I have stated such previsouly and will continue to defend this position.

And as far as the "Black Entertainment Network" is concerned, I know nothing about them, I merely was demonstrating that with a simple public query it was very easy to find a TM holder for "BET", and that was only in Canada. So it is not surprising that DotAsia would receive applications for what many of us might consider "generic" words but are held as TMs by someone.

You also asked:
"February 20, 2008 - March 12, 2008 I registered bet.asia february 20 2008 when did BET reg it? Who won the auction that I wasn't invited to?
Landrush Auction"


There was no auction. The public whois service (http://www.whois.asia/) provided by DotAsia indicates that bet.asia was registered 31-Mar-2008 19:00:34 UTC and it was registered in Sunrise (SR2B) based on a trademark registered in 2005.

So you are saying that Drake Ventures has a trademark on the word bet?

Registrant ID rbl107756
Registrant Name Domain Admin
Registrant Organization Drake Ventures Limited
Registrant Address 33 Pearse Street Box 108
Registrant Address2
Registrant Address3
Registrant City Dublin
Registrant State/Province .
Registrant Postal Code 2
Registrant Country/Economy IE
Registrant Phone +353.16571930
Registrant Phone Ext.
Registrant FAX
Registrant FAX Ext.
Registrant E-mail [email protected]
Administrative
Administrative ID rbl109044
Administrative Name Domain Admin
Administrative Organization Throne Ventures Pty Limited
Administrative Address Suite 20, 100 William Street
Administrative Address2
Administrative Address3
Administrative City Melbourne
Administrative State/Province Victoria
Administrative Postal Code 3000
Administrative Country/Economy AU
Administrative Phone +61.0390169594
Administrative Phone Ext.
Administrative FAX
Administrative FAX Ext.
Administrative E-mail [email protected]
Billing
Billing ID rbl107756
Billing Name Domain Admin
Billing Organization Drake Ventures Limited
Billing Address 33 Pearse Street Box 108
Billing Address2
Billing Address3
Billing City Dublin
Billing State/Province .
Billing Postal Code 2
Billing Country/Economy IE
Billing Phone +353.16571930
Billing Phone Ext.
Billing FAX
Billing FAX Ext.
Billing E-mail [email protected]
Technical
Technical ID rbl107756
Technical Name Domain Admin
Technical Organization Drake Ventures Limited
Technical Address 33 Pearse Street Box 108
Technical Address2
Technical Address3
Technical City Dublin
Technical State/Province .
Technical Postal Code 2
Technical Country/Economy IE
Technical Phone +353.16571930
Technical Phone Ext.
Technical FAX
Technical FAX Ext.
Technical E-mail [email protected]
Operations and Notifications
Operations and Notifications ID rbl107756
Operations and Notifications Name Domain Admin
Operations and Notifications Organization Drake Ventures Limited
Operations and Notifications Address 33 Pearse Street Box 108
Operations and Notifications Address2
Operations and Notifications Address3
Operations and Notifications City Dublin
Operations and Notifications State/Province .
Operations and Notifications Postal Code 2
Operations and Notifications Country/Economy IE
Operations and Notifications Phone +353.16571930
Operations and Notifications Phone Ext.
Operations and Notifications FAX
Operations and Notifications FAX Ext.
Operations and Notifications E-mail [email protected]
Registration Agent
Registration Agent ID
Registration Agent Name
Registration Agent Organization
Registration Agent Address
Registration Agent Address2
Registration Agent Address3
Registration Agent City
Registration Agent State/Province
Registration Agent Postal Code
Registration Agent Country/Economy
Registration Agent Phone
Registration Agent Phone Ext.
Registration Agent FAX
Registration Agent FAX Ext.
Registration Agent E-mail
CED
CED ID rbl109044
CED CC Locality AU
CED State/Province
CED City Melbourne
CED Type of Legal Entity Corporations or Companies
CED Type (Other)
CED Form of Identification Certificate of Incorporation or equivalent business registration certificate
CED Form of ID (Other)
CED Identification Number ACN # 38 125 737 146

 

[Ronald Regging]

You guys are forgetting that this is the domain industry. We already know that a vast majority of the companies involved are completely unethical and corrupt... So when we hear some crazy claim about underhanded practices and some CEO jumps forward fending off allegations like beasts with a sword... Usually we just assume the allegations are correct. I mean, history would serve us well to go with that choice at least.

 

[MaguirePhD]

Ronald Regging

Brand new to this game but from what I have been sent and what I have read, it appears as if this nonsense occurs quite regularly.

I am just trying to get an answer to who owns pool.asia.

Doc

 

[accent]

Totally ridiculous that a company could register a trademark for a generic term and because of that get preferred treatment for a very valuable domain. Generic terms are generic - does not matter if 60 companies trademark them, the "rights" of that term are in the Public Domain --- forever.

The elephant in the room is how did Drake get all those extremely valuable domain names. And do not tell me that they have a TM and nobody else who had a valid TM applied. They do not control those generic terms and if they do have TMs then maybe the TMs were registered to game the system.

Pool.com may or may not have anything to do with this. But it looks like a near zero chance that all those valuable domains were obtained by the same company ethically.

 

[rasman]

MaquirePHD... read your own posting

You posted the answer to your question already in this forum, pool.asia was applied for during the Pioneer Program by Pool.com before the Sunrise period started... I suggest you go back to your original post and read it again. Domains in the Pioneer Program were awarded based on public voting. The DotAsia site has a full history of all the domains that were awarded in this way. I suspect the whois information does not currently show Pool.com as the registrant because the final Pioneer Program paperwork is not complete yet.

"So you are saying that Drake Ventures has a trademark on the word bet?"

Correct, and this information is publicly available through the DotAsia whois service and was verified by the DotAsia verification agent Deloitte Touche.

 

[Ronald Regging]

Brand new to this game but from what I have been sent and what I have read, it appears as if this nonsense occurs quite regularly.

I am just trying to get an answer to who owns pool.asia.

Doc

I believe Pool.asia is reserved by the government pending an approval for Pool's application for the Pioneers Program. From what I gathered, this basically gives every company involved in the DotAsia launch process guaranteed ownership of their business names in the extension without contention... Though it's apparently some type of application process, which doesn't make any sense at all. There aren't a lot of factors to consider. You either give special domains to your partners or you don't... Not sure how running that through an application process and an independent reviewer would change the fact that there was only one possible conclusion for those applications. I mean seriously, I wonder how many Pioneers Program applications were denied? I'd imagine zero...

So essentially, pool.asia was never in the pool, so to speak.

 

[accent]

So I can trademark the 100 most valuable domain names and thereby have priority rights to them? Totally Ridiculous.

But that probably was not Pool's decision. Registrys often keep a few choice domains for their own use, allowing Pool.com that privilege for pool.asia does not seem too far out of line, IMHO.

 

[MaguirePhD]

Wrong Rich

You posted the answer to your question already in this forum, pool.asia was applied for during the Pioneer Program by Pool.com before the Sunrise period started

No, I did not post that at all.

I had no idea when pool.com filed for pool.asia and your post is the first tme I was made aware of that.

So, now this valdation process becomes more important because I need to find out why any application except pool.com's was rejected.

That is my one concern.

Tell you what I will do Rich. since you know the head guys at DotAsia, tell them all this needs to be cleared up just to keep the industry image clean.
I'll pay my own way over and they can let me look over their flles

As far as the Drake deal, I don't care what anyone states here about the phases, the applications, the trademarks or the process to know that this stinks like the bathroom door on a tuna boat at low tide.

And ICANN needs to review this and if they won't, then CANN needs to be put in the spotlight as to why.

Doc

P.S. As was stated above by accentnepal, to which I agree, setting aside pool.asia for the auctioneer that is assisting DotAsia is not a stretch as far as a quid pro quo. But that is not what I am being told.

I am hearing that there was a process in place and that pool.com went through it. Since we were excluded then I need to know why and need to see on what basis.