DNS Research Inc. vs. Enom/Verisign

[StargateCapital]

.tv domains revoked

..

 

[TheBulldog]

Wow, that really sucks, those are some nice names.

I think, though, that equity stated they can do this within 30 days of registration according to their TOS.

On the flip side, this is really making Demand Media look bad, so meh.

 

[Vimal]

I feel bad for you, but seeing the other thread about what happened to fleaking and based on equity's response that domain names can be taken back by the corporation in the first 30 days. It will be a tough case to win. Good Luck !!

Those were great names !!

 

[equity78]

Its not Demand Media it is Verisign not allowing that and I don't blame them there is no way I would let them go for $10 and everyone knows no .tv is priced at $10

ENOM Registration Agreement

SERVICE(S) PROVIDED AT WILL AND TERMINATION OF SERVICE(S): We and your Primary Service Provider may reject your domain name registration application or elect to discontinue providing Service(s) to you for any reason within 30 days of a Service initiation or a Service renewal. Outside of this period, we and your Primary Service Provider may terminate or suspend the Service(s) at any time for cause, which, without limitation, includes registration of prohibited domain name(s), abuse of the Services, payment irregularities, serious allegations of illegal conduct, or if your use of the Services involves us in a violation of any Internet Service Provider's ("ISP's") acceptable use policies, including the transmission of unsolicited bulk email. You agree that if we terminate or suspend the Services provided to you under this Agreement, that we may then, at our option, make either ourselves or a third party the beneficiary of Services which are substantially similar to those which were previously providing to you and that any reference in this Agreement to termination or suspension of the Services to you includes this option. If we have grounds to terminate or suspend Service(s) with respect to one domain name or in relation to other Service(s) provided through your account, we may terminate or suspend all Service(s) provided through your account, including Service(s) to other domain names. No fee refund will be made when there is a suspension or termination of Service(s) for cause. At any time and for any reason, we may terminate the Services 30 days after we send notice of termination via mail or email, at our option, to the WHOIS contact information provided in association with your domain name registration. Following notice of termination other than for cause, you must transfer your domain name or risk that we may delete your domain name or suspend or modify Services to it. If we terminate Services for a reason other than cause, we will attempt to refund your fees. You further acknowledge and agree that your registration of a domain name is subject to suspension, cancellation or transfer by any ICANN procedure, by any registrar or registry administrator procedures approved by an ICANN-adopted policy, to correct mistakes by us, another registrar or the registry administrator in administering the domain name or for the resolution of disputes concerning the domain name.

funny you go put in online.tv reunion.tv or Christmas they all say available go to ENOMCENTRAL says buy for $10 log in click and then it says Premium Name not for sale Totally Clueless

 

[TLDnetworks]

No problem guys, we'll just add three zeros to all of them...

DIR.tv = $10,000
Gifts.TV = $10,000
reunion.tv = $10,000
online.tv = $10,000
catering.tv = $10,000
miss.tv = $10,000
survey.tv = $10,000
rb.tv = $10,000
Christmas.tv = $10,000
banner.tv = $10,000
creditcard.tv = $10,000
garden.tv = $10,000
brand.tv = $10,000
autos.tv = $10,000
champagne.tv = $10,000

 

[BDM1]

For one, I cant believe these were let go of and secondly its sucks the way these big boys think they can push us around / set whatever laws they want... It might be time for a rally outside the offices and some major people be bought ino the mix to get a few things straightened out.

Im sure if this was tested in a court of law, some laws would be changed. it takes numbers and exposure to the right people in power.

 

[equity78]

Online.tv went out of business is why these domains dropped they spent alot but were too early. Again Verisign spent $45 million for the DOT TV CORP and can charge whatever they like for a .tv as can any other cctld. Difference in pricing between a .in and a co.uk and a .tm and a .im and a .gd and a .md and a .jp and so on and so on and so on.................................................................................................

 

[domainacrobat]

Dear Fellow NamePro Members:

As you may know, there was a gigantic .tv domain drop that included over 220 great domains on Sunday Morning (6/17/07). My corporation was lucky to pick up a few of them. The domains had all been priced at $10 (probably the orignal Online.TV owner's pricing). As of this morning, 10:08 PST, they have all been removed from my enom accounts after they were all fully paid for (with email confirmation receipts) and already resolving to my TrafficZ parking page setup. My account details have been removed for security purposes. I'll be working with my legal council on this and will do everything in my power ensure that [a] this gets rectified will all domains returned to myself and other parties to which this has happened to and that this never happens to anyone again. Enom & Verisign have decided to fool with the wrong company. Much time, money and research was invested in this and it will not be lost.

Here is the email received from Deborah Burditt [[email protected]] regarding the issue:



We'll keep everyone up to date as this case progresses towards resolve.

Sincerely,

DNS Research Inc.

I am very dissapointed for you. I have been following all sorts of drops and this would explain why there so many good ones. I wish you the best of luck but I cant see you coming out on top. They reserve the right to revoke anything within a time period, you agreed to it when you purchase the domain. So, considering all things I think you may have an endless uphill battle. Still I hopeyou can squeeze out some nice domains.

 

[TLDnetworks]

I am very dissapointed for you. I have been following all sorts of drops and this would explain why there so many good ones. I wish you the best of luck but I cant see you coming out on top. They reserve the right to revoke anything within a time period, you agreed to it when you purchase the domain. So, considering all things I think you may have an endless uphill battle. Still I hopeyou can squeeze out some nice domains.

Sorry domainacrobat, it just is not going to happen. This is standard operating procedure, and has been happening in other tld's as well. I had a three letter .info taken away by verisign after purchasing at snap, MANY "Geo"TV.com names have been gone from delete status to the account of Unifund Corporation. Just a fact everyone dealing in domains has to cope with.

ENOM Registration Agreement

SERVICE(S) PROVIDED AT WILL AND TERMINATION OF SERVICE(S): We and your Primary Service Provider may reject your domain name registration application or elect to discontinue providing Service(s) to you for any reason within 30 days of a Service initiation or a Service renewal. Outside of this period, we and your Primary Service Provider may terminate or suspend the Service(s) at any time for cause, which, without limitation, includes registration of prohibited domain name(s), abuse of the Services, payment irregularities, serious allegations of illegal conduct, or if your use of the Services involves us in a violation of any Internet Service Provider's ("ISP's") acceptable use policies, including the transmission of unsolicited bulk email. You agree that if we terminate or suspend the Services provided to you under this Agreement, that we may then, at our option, make either ourselves or a third party the beneficiary of Services which are substantially similar to those which were previously providing to you and that any reference in this Agreement to termination or suspension of the Services to you includes this option. If we have grounds to terminate or suspend Service(s) with respect to one domain name or in relation to other Service(s) provided through your account, we may terminate or suspend all Service(s) provided through your account, including Service(s) to other domain names. No fee refund will be made when there is a suspension or termination of Service(s) for cause. At any time and for any reason, we may terminate the Services 30 days after we send notice of termination via mail or email, at our option, to the WHOIS contact information provided in association with your domain name registration. Following notice of termination other than for cause, you must transfer your domain name or risk that we may delete your domain name or suspend or modify Services to it. If we terminate Services for a reason other than cause, we will attempt to refund your fees. You further acknowledge and agree that your registration of a domain name is subject to suspension, cancellation or transfer by any ICANN procedure, by any registrar or registry administrator procedures approved by an ICANN-adopted policy, to correct mistakes by us, another registrar or the registry administrator in administering the domain name or for the resolution of disputes concerning the domain name.

 

[DNWizardX9]

good luck getting these at such a cheap rate. However you should be going after Verisign and not Enom. Verisign sets the pricing and they run the registry. Enom just controls the inventory now.

 

[domainacrobat]

Sorry domainacrobat, it just is not going to happen. This is standard operating procedure, and has been happening in other tld's as well. I had a three letter .info taken away by verisign after purchasing at snap, MANY "Geo"TV.com names have been gone from delete status to the account of Unifund Corporation. Just a fact everyone dealing in domains has to cope with.

Not sure I follow??? You say sorry Domainacrobat its not going to happen... Whats not going to happen? I said he has no chance... As far as I can tell, you said the same thing?

I was just wishing him best of luck

 

[kam]

good luck getting these at such a cheap rate. However you should be going after Verisign and not Enom. Verisign sets the pricing and they run the registry. Enom just controls the inventory now.

In this case, I think at least one party [eNom or Verisign ] may undertake the responsibility of such pricing error.

Today, eNom.tv sent me an email and removed my domain from my account.

 

[StargateCapital]

media.tv?

 

[antonis12]

I still don't understand why online.tv let them drop. I understand they went out of business because they spent too much too early, but with renewal fees of $10/each, why would you *ever* let that list of domains drop?

My only hypothesis is that this is an arrangement between online.tv and Enom/Verisign to bring them back into the fold for registration and that online.tv was compensated for it.

Otherwise, that is the most boneheaded move in the history of the .tv extension to let them drop.

 

[DNWizardX9]

I still don't understand why online.tv let them drop. I understand they went out of business because they spent too much too early, but with renewal fees of $10/each, why would you *ever* let that list of domains drop?

My only hypothesis is that this is an arrangement between online.tv and Enom/Verisign to bring them back into the fold for registration and that online.tv was compensated for it.

Otherwise, that is the most boneheaded move in the history of the .tv extension to let them drop.

The lease agreement probably concluded... These domains were able to be regged at such a cheap rate provided that online.tv promote them. Since they are no longer in business it isn't in the agreement that the names can just be held. Since these are normally premium regs it was probably in the contract that at the time of renewal verisign can have an option to terminate if the other party is not fulfilling what was in the contract.

 

[antonis12]

The lease agreement probably concluded... These domains were able to be regged at such a cheap rate provided that online.tv promote them. Since they are no longer in business it isn't in the agreement that the names can just be held. Since these are normally premium regs it was probably in the contract that at the time of renewal verisign can have an option to terminate if the other party is not fulfilling what was in the contract.

Fascinating. Thanks for the fast reply! Do you know that for sure or are you just giving an educated guess?

I have never seen the full explanation re: online.tv.

I know they started off with about 3,000 names in 2000 and I seem to remember $3M as being floated around as a price and obviously just nominal renewal fees.

Does anyone know a) more or b) more definitively what happened there?

This is just my best guess...

 

[CarryOn]

Hi everyone, I've browsed on and off this year, joined up last month, but just getting around to posting. (Note, my note may be overkill because I see that CashCowDomains had posted a thread on this so I'll join it as its directly relevant - and I have something to add about online.tv in my last paragraph.) I thought my recent situation with Enom would be interesting to everyone here involved in TV. And I look forward to participating more. I have been tracking the expiration, redemption period, and pending delete of many TV names for the past couple months. These names were all registered to online.tv - as many here probably know. There were quite a few - more than 150 that I was tracking. Well, they finally dropped over the weekend. Verisign released them at the original $10 annual registration, and amazingly they were availabe for registration at this price. I missed most of them by seconds/minutes. But I did manage to register two names: Rich.TV and Sports24.TV Believe me they were way down the list of names I was interested in. At least something though, right? Within minutes all the expiring names (e.g. Wedding, tennis, wine, chocolate, finance, vacations, etc, etc,) were registered and since the Whois database still showed "Pending-Delete" anyone who missed that window would not have known what happened - and this all happened during the middle of the night for all you who are US based. (I am in the UK)

My two new names were duly paid for and placed in my enom account. I had control of them. Today, I returned home from work and receive an email from Enom:

"Please be advised, that due to a pricing error, we inadvertently listed several .TV premium domain names at $10.00 each. These .tv premium domain names were supposed to be priced at $10,000.00 per domain name. As a result, any .TV premium domains you purchased at the $10.00 rate will be removed from your account and full credit will be issued today. These .tv premium domains will be re-priced and re-added to the Auction website today."

My two new names were removed from my account straight away. Their message, while not rude, certainly wasn't polite or apologetic. Not the type of shopping experience you expect - especially since I've spent thousands at Enom.

What does all this mean? Obviously, verisign or enom messed up. Their systems automatically released these names at the original premiums. Their fault. Its not my fault I registered what they offered. And yes I understand - from the Fleaking post, and Equity's explanation in that thread, that enom can revoke within the first 30 days without reason. They messed up, if this had happened on Main Street the outcome would be very different - not just a refund - probably a deep discount or some form of customer service. Aren't domain registries becoming part of Main Street? Plain and simple they messed up. There explanation letter to me suggests they messed up and are trying to cover their butts by stating that all the names should have been ten thousand not ten, as if they missed typing the three zeros - come on Sports24.TV is worth nowhere near 10k/year, maybe a bit above standard reg. What is a shame is that this could have been a fantastic opportunity for another round of positive publicity - press release or availability of great new premium names, etc. I certainly didn't expect $10 prices. I was hoping for rational pricing and would have been willing to pay reasonable sums for a couple of the names ($10k renewals are too rich for my blood). And to cover themselves they blow it again by pricing all of online.tv's expiring names at 10k premiums.

For those with deep pockets there actually may be some interesting one's in this pile. I'm passing on them but everyone should browse the premium list - all the newly added name's are priced at 10k. Here are some of the best in no particular order - which if they hadn't messed up, some would be priced higher IMO, especially the single letter L.tvs.
E.TV, D.TV, P.TV, Digital.TV, Finance.TV, Wine.TV (I really wanted this one!), Bank.TV, Hotel.TV, Resort.TV, Holidays.TV, Vacations.TV, UK.TV, England.TV, America.TV, Europe.TV, Car.TV, Bike.TV, Catering.TV, Shoes.TV, Chocolate.TV, Satellite.TV, and many more....

BTW - online.tv is still in business, this is a whole different story. I think many thought they went bankrupt but in my effort to get some of these names before they went back to verisign I kept digging. If you followed the trail left on whois and archive.org you come up empty handed. I discovered that online.tv was a uk company, and since I live in the UK, and know something about corporate issues here I dug up old corporate filings and slowly followed the trail to a current registered legal representative office, and actually spoke with an attorney there. Confirmed they are a going concern but never was able to speak with an active director in time. I'm still a bit baffled as to why they would let all these names drop - from what I could tell they still have some funds on their books. Why would you let 3 single character TVs drop for lack of $30s? What dawned on me is that they may have made an upfront deal with TV Corp for a certain number of years (e.g. through April 11, 2007) with a clause that renewal fees would be renegotiated at significantly higher rates on that date. If this is the case then the renewal fees would have been raised well above the $10 level originally negotiated. Does anyone have anymore insight into this?

Its been an interesting couple months with this situation - unfortunately the ending was handled poorly, and another missed opportunity for TV. Cheers, CarryOn

 

[StargateCapital]

..

 

[TheBulldog]

What from the 20 people on this board? And only 3 have complained, and their legal claused will hardly make this class action.

No offense CCD, I respect you, so nothing personal.

 

[StargateCapital]

None taken.. the complaints are growing though.

 

[TheBulldog]

Heck, it's enom, hardly surprising their are complaints. Just look at the mess it was figuring out which enom site was which.

Nothing new there though, people complain about godaddy as well, but they keep getting bigger and more obtuse.

 

[DNWizardX9]

well you guys did get a "receipt" showing that you paid. Thats some proof at least.

 

[kam]

media.tv?

Yes.

 

[meeks]

I hope you can get a decent result out of this CCD,
Its time to get these companies to take responsibility for themselves.
If they screw up then they should have to wear it like the rest of society, hiding behind an unfair clause in an agreement is not on.

Perhaps getting such clauses removed from the registration agreements is the way to go. Then maybe we would see some decent customer relations and service because they would have to stay on top of things as opposed to having the option they have now of reneging.

 

[TLDnetworks]

Not sure I follow??? You say sorry Domainacrobat its not going to happen... Whats not going to happen? I said he has no chance... As far as I can tell, you said the same thing?

I was just wishing him best of luck

That he would not get any of the names that you were hoping he would. That's all.