discuss .Co registry RESERVING pending delete domain names for themselves?

[Crysis]

For the past few days, I have been observing that .Co registry has been reserving many of the pending delete domain names for themselves.

For ex: The domain names listed below were supposed to drop yesterday and become available for hand registration. Now, if you check the whois, it's showing as RESERVED.

Some Examples

• HaveFun.co
• SpaceLabs.co
• Eits.co
• Wast.co
• Adrienne.co

I can understand if premium .co domain names like Idea.co, Talent.co are getting reserved by the registry. However, in these cases, even mediocre domain names are getting reserved for the past few days.

Some Examples (These are just a few examples. There are many more domain names which are getting reserved)

• Locatelli.co
• SoulFire.co
• Bergamo.co
• Wova.co
• Wiku.co
• Furmanite.co
• Nxstage.co
• OnlineIncome.co
• PureBliss.co
  
• TraderOnline.co

Have any of you observed the same thing?
Is this ethical?

 

[slader23]

Wikipedia is not a 'source'. Please show us something from ICANN or Ministry of Communications of Colombia that explains what was in Neustar's contract when they acquired the tld. That is pure journalism. Linking to non-source data is not helpful.

"...Ministry of Communications of Colombia initiated a public consultation process involving local and international participants, including members of the ICANN community, with the objective of defining the future of the .CO TLD..."

Above is probably the most important part of the wiki link. I highly doubt "The Future" was a ccTLD.

Bro...it's a CCTLD Do you understand? All two letter TLDs are CCTLDs.

 

[slader23]

Please support your comments with source links to back them up. Just saying stuff about democracy and ethics doesn't answer anything. You are accusing a company of wrong doing. There is no reason to single them out unless you can show a policy that has been violated.

I linked to their premium and reserved domain policy above, and gave an example via xyz. What they are doing is the industry trend.

http://www.go.co/about/
http://www.go.co/company/premium-names
https://gen.xyz/premiums

In 2014 Neustar acquired .CO Internet for $109 million. Just because .co is categorized as a ccTld on sites like NamePros and NameBio doesn't mean it's be operated as such, and is legally obligated to be operated as such. .COM.CO is the ccTLD like community extension in use in Colombia. Other countries have this split going on like .COM.MX with .MX for example.

The difference is .CO is the short of .COM and is recognized as a global tld. If you think shorter is better then think .COM >> .CO. It's not marketed as a ccTLD for Colombia.

https://www.home.neustar/about-us/news-room/press-releases/2014/neustar-to-acquire-co-internet-sas

If you have more info please share.

You don't seem to understand. .CO is a CCTLD plain and simple. It is operated as a CCTLD. LEGALLY IT IS A CCTLD. Just because they try to brand it as something else doesn't change that matter. .COM.CO is a second level cctld and so is .COM.MX, .CO and .MX are the top level country code domains for Colombia and Mexico, respectively.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.co

 

[kriss05]

.co registry is following Donuts's route? Don't complain then when people start loosing interest in your extension.

 

[Crysis]

I sent an email to . Co registry couple of weeks ago. Well..no new developments here. As mentioned by @John Napoletano before, .Co registry will be implementing tier pricing update from September 1st. That is why they are reserving domain names as they drop.

Below is the response by Neustar:

Thanks for reaching out to us. Eduardo forwarded me your email below. .CO Internet launched premium tiered pricing through the registrar channel back in August of 2015 on a limited basis, as a test case. We have been monitoring tiered pricing in .CO and across other TLDs since then, and continue to see success with the model. As a result, we are expanding our tiered pricing options for .CO effective as of September 1st. As we prepare for that expansion, we have communicated the change with our registrar partners, and plan to publish updated FAQs on our website prior to September 1st.

I will keep you posted as soon as they go up.

 

[D Haynes]

Is it dependant on the registrar? I mean does the name have to be dropping to be reserved or are they stopping the registrar renewing for another year and then auctioning them off like GoDaddy does.

 

[Crysis]

Is it dependant on the registrar? I mean does the name have to be dropping to be reserved or are they stopping the registrar renewing for another year and then auctioning them off like GoDaddy does.

I don't think the registrar is reserving the domain names. Initially, I thought a particular registrar is reserving the domain names. But then yesterday, I compiled a list of some domains which were supposed to drop and become available for hand registration. There were multiple registrars.

For ex: HaveFun.co was registered at Namecheap
Adrienne.co was registered at Tucows
SpaceLabs.co was registered at GoDaddy

One more domain name that was supposed to drop yesterday - Nonsense.co was registered at Enom

 

[Crysis]

So the GoDaddy name will have already gone though their expired auction process without any interest before dropping and being reserved?

Yes. These are pending delete domain names. I believe Godaddy name has already gone through the Expired auction and closeout process before dropping and becoming available for hand registration.

 

[Josytal]

May be they are studying why such "very good" names are dropping. LOL!

That's always the problem when you designate human functions to robots.

 

[John Napoletano]

From their official site...

There are a number of names that have not been made available to the public for a variety of reasons. .CO Internet has established business policies and procedures around these names in accordance with international best practices. There are three types of name lists that have been withheld from general availability within the .CO namespace:

• Premium Domain List: The Premium Domain List generally consists of names reserved by .CO Internet S.A.S. for future sale via public or private auction and/or privately negotiated transactions, including single and double character names, keywords and generic terms.
• Restricted Domain List: The Restricted Domain List generally consists of names stipulated by the Colombian Government as restricted and not available for registration.
• Reserved Domain List: The Reserved Domain List generally consists of names reserved by .CO Internet S.A.S. for promotional and/or other strategic purposes, and/or for its or its affiliates’ internal use.

The .CO registry has not published a publicly available list of all the Premium and Reserved domain names.

http://www.go.co/company/premium-names

 

[slader23]

How is what they are doing different from what the other registry and registrars are doing, have been doing? I vaguely recall the former GoDaddy CEO talking about ethics in regards to fees. But since then, 1000+ new tld launches. I think all parties are testing new pricing ideas now.

Look at xyz another popular one. $55,000 "Recommended first year fee" for Tier 1 domains. $13,000 for Tier 2. We are a long ways away from a few tld 10 years ago.

https://gen.xyz/premiums

The big difference is that .CO is a ccTLD not a GTLD or NGTD. Ethical standards need to be much, much higher.

As a CIRA member, I know for sure such things won't be allowed to happen in .CA. The only names that should be reserved are those that are emds of cities, municipalities and provinces. Apart from that, as a democratically conscious country code top level domain, everything else is left OPEN to the public (Canadian) for registration.

The fact that .co is even doing this is unacceptable. There is big difference between representing a country and representing a brand. .CO isn't .COMPANY, it's the CCTLD of Colombia. The moment management starts to forget that is the moment they need to be ushered out the door.

 

[alcy]

noticed less qualty expiring io and co

lately...

 

[slader23]

Do you not understand the point of the "Ethics" and "Democracy" discussion that entered the conversation with CA as an example? Yes it's a ccTLD as designated by IANA. Here is the factual linkf from the source which you failed to pass into the conversation.

https://www.iana.org/domains/root/db

That means nothing in regards to what was agreed in the acquisition contract of 2014. Just saying its a ccTLD means nothing to how they are legally obligated to operate.

CCTLD---->Legally required to operate as a CCTLD. What's the point of even speculating about an acquisition contract? You have know clue what the terms were.

 

[chandan]

ok then https://www.iana.org/domains/root/db/co.html

 

[Nikul Sanghvi]

Thanks for the update @John Napoletano - completely agree, the lack of transparency is shameful. All of the questions you raise are valid.

I've had around 50 different back orders fail over the last month due to the domain being reserved by the registry. The most recent being Etna.co on 24/07/18. Feels like the registry have the exact same strategy as many of us for picking investment-grade domains.

 

[Premiums]

same for .CLUB

 

[D Haynes]

I don't think the registrar is reserving the domain names. Initially, I thought a particular registrar is reserving the domain names. But then yesterday, I compiled a list of some domains which were supposed to drop and become available for hand registration. There were multiple registrars.

For ex: HaveFun.co was registered at Namecheap
Adrienne.co was registered at Tucows
SpaceLabs.co was registered at GoDaddy

One more domain name that was supposed to drop yesterday - Nonsense.co was registered at Enom

So the GoDaddy name will have already gone though their expired auction process without any interest before dropping and being reserved?

 

[D Haynes]

Thanks for the info @Crysis.

 

[Kate]

Is this ethical?

At the very least, it's not healthy.
Registries are in a privileged position. In the real world (that the domain industry is able to escape), there are laws and regulations to avoid or limit abuse of a dominant position, and the conflicts of interest arising from such a position.

 

[Crysis]

@equity78 has also covered this topic.

https://www.thedomains.com/2018/07/16/is-co-starting-to-hold-back-mediocre-domain-names/

Some very interesting comments

@domains says

JULY 16, 2018 AT 5:34 PM

.co is one of the more often used extensions when the .com isn’t available, and has many of the top sales spots on the 2018 country code sales chart (e.g.: feed.co, cbd.co, nurture.co, rival.co). I see what you’re saying, the examples of names you gave that are not obviously great but being held back. The .co registry must be seeing something in registration patterns or trends. Perhaps they are automatically holding some back for review and will end up releasing some, and keeping some. Ones like HaveFun.co, SpaceLabs.co and PureBliss.co are not premiums, but at the same time I could see a company using them. Part of it might be about having an inventory of names that can possibly sell for higher than reg fee. In a market where new G’s might be starting to weaken, perhaps extensions like .co and .io are transforming into the runners up to .com, at least for some users.

xyo says

JULY 16, 2018 AT 5:38 PM

Actually not only domains that should have dropped have been reserved, but also domains that were free before.
Namely all 4L domains, just check brsw.co or qzta.co for example. This happen between 07/10 and 07/11

Most Interesting Domains says

JULY 16, 2018 AT 10:15 PM

They are starting to see the value in names and making them more expensive. – But in a squatter kinda way.

On this list of .co’s: A famous person’s last name, a great name for an already existing yoga studio, names of corporations, LLLL’s and more established .com equivalents.

My question is, Is it an algorithm or bot doing it? Or are they hiring people to suggest it’s new sale value?
– Most Interesting Domains

 

[Furquan]

I tried to register some 4l.co all I can see its reserved. I still own 3 llll.co name which are near to expiry.

 

[Furquan]

Yeah...For the past few days/weeks, they are reserving almost all of the CVCV.co domain names. I have not checked other 4L.co's (Chips, etc)

I just checked random, Wuus.co reserved, wuue.co reserved. Payn.co reserved.

I own wuun, payq, payl all are going to expiry this week.

 

[Furquan]

As per the namebio 4l.co sale report. There were 314 llll.co got sold with total value of $1.3 million.

https://namebio.com/?s==QjN4QjNwgTM

Now, if I am going to compere this with .io here is .io 4l reported sales from Namebio.

418 Total LLLL.io sales, total value of this sales is only $684.5k

https://namebio.com/?s==kDNwUjNwgTM

Over all I can see an pronounceable or cvcv or cvvc .co are performing better then .io, .in etc.

LLLL.co slightly behind to .co.uk which has total value of reported LLLL.co.uk is $1.6m

https://namebio.com/?s==IjN5QjNwgTM

 

[equity78]

That’s a ridiculous excuse to warehouse domains for max profit. Is @Lori Anne still with .co?

She is at Neustar, who acquired them. Not sure if that's her day to day. She is VP of Registry Solutions.

 

[Crysis]