Freemarket is spamming Flippa's failures

[Joseph Green]

Freemarket.com is sending spam to members of Flippa.com who have failed to sell their domains on Flippa.

Subject: No luck selling example.com? Sell on Freemarket with 1 click!
Body: Hello,

My name is Stefan Hogan and I run Freemarket.com, an online marketplace helping millions of entrepreneurs buy and sell websites online. I saw that your listing did not sell on Flippa. I would love to help you make money by selling it on Freemarket.

We beat Flippa by offering:

• Zero Listing Fee
• Low 5% Commission Rates
• Secure Handover With No Extra Fees

Example.com is ready to go! Simply click the button below, and we'll import your listing details from Flippa and make it available for buyers.

[Sell Your Listing With 1 Click]


Regards,

Stefan Hogan
Product Manager, Freemarket.com
Email: [email protected]

Why do some companies think it's okay to send unsolicited email to the registrant on WHOIS records? It's completely unacceptable and an abuse of the system.

Please put a stop to this practice immediately. Freemarket has violated CAN-SPAM laws and the WHOIS terms of use:

By submitting a Whois query, you agree to abide
by the following terms of use: You agree that you may use this Data only
for lawful purposes and that under no circumstances will you use this Data
to: (1) allow, enable, or otherwise support the transmission of mass
unsolicited, commercial advertising or solicitations via e-mail, telephone,
or facsimile

Freemarket.com is owned by Freelancer.com so I expect more from a reputable company.

I receive enough spam as it is from dishonorable companies abusing the WHOIS database. The last thing we need is big companies adding to the problem.

Warning about Freemarket: View Thread.


@Stefan Hogan
@FlippaDomains

 

[RogueWriter]

Eh, my only experience with freemarket left me with a desire to never see or hear from them again. As far as this thread goes, I think Eric covered it pretty well in his response.

 

[domainerfella]

@Joseph Green Thank you for promoting freemarket. I never knew. Gotta have a look

 

[domainerfella]

As far as ethics goes, I think they should stop mentioning "Flippa" in their e-mails.

 

[Joseph Green]

To elaborate, they violated the CAN-SPAM Act in two ways:

1. They did not identify the message as an ad.
2. Their unsubscribe link did not work.

As Eric pointed out, the bigger issue here is ethics and the consequences of condoning unsolicited email. The problem will only get worse if we consider it an acceptable business practice.

In my opinion, this is not the same as what some domainers do.

 

[Joseph Green]

Thank you for promoting freemarket. I never knew. Gotta have a look

I've never used them, but there are plenty of posts in other threads from people who have.

The purpose of this thread is not to dissuade others from using their services. The goal is to hopefully convince them to stop their abusive and unethical behavior.

 

[DU]

Not really though.
A general domainer may attempt to contact a specific person regarding a potential sale with a particular name. This being targeted and limited. Freemarket have sent probably thousands of emails to flippa sellers who have failed selling a name on a service, trying to sell their own service. There is a massive difference imo.

I would say that Freemarket is MORE targeted than most domainers. They identified a person who tried to sell something and offered to do a better job when that effort failed. Do domainers know the people they contact are in the market for anything? Not usually.

But another every one spams except us ethical non-spamming domainer's rose-tinted view of the domaining world thread.

 

[Joseph Green]

@defaultuser

I've never listed a domain on Flippa.

This email was not targeted at all; it's just plain spam to domain registrants.

 

[iowadawg]

Spam to one is legit to another.
End of story.

 

[timestamp]

I've never listed a domain on Flippa.

This thread wouldn't make it to the Page 2 if you wrote it in first post.

 

[DomainGist]

@defaultuser

I've never listed a domain on Flippa.

This email was not targeted at all; it's just plain spam to domain registrants.

Eh?

So is Freemarket specifically harvesting the registrants email addresses of failed flippa auctions and then sending out targeted emails to steal Flippa's existing customers, as you claim in your OP.

Or is Freemarket simply sending mailouts to domain registrants, like the hundreds of web design companies who do the same, as you suggest in this post?

It's quite an important distinction!

If the latter though, its a bit bizarre that they would mention a failed flippa auction if you haven't even listed on flippa. Should you not be concerned that somebody is fraudulenty listing your domains for sale, or that somebody has listed a domain that you've sold them without updating whois records?

 

[NameOmnia]

I Vote for "Unethical".

Totally agree

 

[Joseph Green]

@PugDomainsLtd

Good question. I suspect both.

From reading a few articles on Flippa, I believe they have systems in place to ensure that listings are verified by the registrant or an authorized broker, so my guess is that this was a mistake or it is a mischievous way for them to spam people without drawing too much attention to it.

In any case, I consider the email in poor taste and unsolicited.

 

[DU]

@defaultuser

I've never listed a domain on Flippa.

This email was not targeted at all; it's just plain spam to domain registrants.

Your first post said:

"Freemarket.com is sending spam to members of Flippa.com who have failed to sell their domains on Flippa."

Hit delete. Add to your spam folder. You won't be bothered again. People here use domaintools, whoisology, all kinds of "tools" that violate whois etc. I saw complaints today that co.uk doesn't list email and .io doesn't make it easy to find registrants.....you probably don't actually want the Terms enforced.

 

[N-A]

If that's the case, let's call out everyone for unsolicited messages.

• List removed.

Shame on all of them, cause I didn't ask for it.

Nobody has this email address except this forum, one person mentioned and some it's on some privacy/public whois domains.

* I know that once in the past, having opened it allowed for them to see that the email has been read, but I believe that images are now cached so that is not the case. In which case, I consented to being spammed, by opening 1 email, from someone who then resold it... or it's being harvested. I probably agreed to being spammed as well. Who knows. Who actually reads a 10 page ToS?

 

[tomcarl]

My point is...

Who are we or the OP to single this company out and publicly speculate what they are doing, how they are doing it, if what they are doing is ethical/unethical, while we all already know every well-known professional and major company in this industry sends unsolicited mail directly or has a broker that works for them that sends unsolicited email in one way or another?

We can only speculate as to what Freemarket is doing, how many emails they're sending, how they're getting their leads, etc. Because the email sent to this person was addressed only to him and personalized to him including the domain name that he owns, no different than any other tailored email sent from any other broker/domainer/company.

Yet someone can say 1 email is considered spam based on its wording and yet the other isn't? Who has the authority to do this? Unsolicited is Unsolicited no matter how you paint it, no matter how you word it, no matter how you address the person reading it. So I can't help but see the hypocrisy here.

If you want to single out one email and call it an act of spam (which I don't see it as) - Anyone is just as guilty If you've ever sent an unsolicited email for anything or have dealt with a company who has brokers who emails (because according to OP, then they are so called "endorsing it" too)

To sum it up... Is this a debate on Spam? Is this a debate on who we can single out as a spammer in this industry and who is a promoter/broker?

Are we determining who is gets a free pass from being called a spammer and who receives a whole lot of bad press in this community?

I think this thread gives more to worry about for any company or professional domainer in this industry than the act of the OP receiving a single email himself.

 

[DomainGist]

I've been sending unsolicitored emails every day, I call it "domaining", I'm not going to be one of those domainers who sits around twiddling his thumbs refreshing the sedo offers page to sell 0.6% of his portfolio per year..... I'm in the business of selling.

I'm in the process of closing three small UK domain sales. All achieved through picking up the phone or sending out emails. All unsolicitored. So I can't criticise for emails received, and I'm surprised David Walker has named/criticised a domainer who has sent emails to him trying to sell a domain. I thought all domainers did this?

 

[Joseph Green]

Your first post said:
"Freemarket.com is sending spam to members of Flippa.com who have failed to sell their domains on Flippa."

That sentence is a summary of the email that I quoted directly after it.

We can only speculate as to what Freemarket is doing, how many emails they're sending, how they're getting their leads, etc

That's the benefit of a community. We can collaborate and provide a more complete picture.

If you've ever sent an unsolicited email for anything or have dealt with a company who has brokers who emails (because according to OP, then they are so called "endorsing it" too)

I never said that. Further, I've made it pretty clear what this thread is about and explained my stance on everything in follow-up posts.

 

[DU]

If that's the case, let's call out everyone for unsolicited messages.
[edit]
I probably agreed to being spammed as well. Who knows. Who actually reads a 10 page ToS?

I doubt that Rakutan is sending spam- they probably are taking advantage of partnership agreements. These establish a "business relationship" which 3rd Parties which is then a whole new set of rules. They will also fulfill all the opt-out requirements.

There are laws for that in the US that are basically opt-out. In Europe and Japan it's stricter as opt-in (I think, I just looked up Japan )

 

[N-A]

So I can't criticise for emails received, and I'm surprised David Walker has named/criticised a domainer who has sent emails to him trying to sell a domain. I thought all domainers did this?

The list was to point out the hypocrisy of what we're doing as a whole, by putting actual "spammers" as individuals up to paint a clearer picture.

The list has been edited out because I don't want anyone to think that I dimed them out for spamming, when I wholeheartedly agree that it's not spamming, but domaining as you stated.

Where Freemarket would cross the line is if they sent an email to the the email on the domain name that didn't sell. I believe that would be spamming, even though it's targeting a specific domain. It's not targeting a specific domain owner, so you could expect 1 for each failed auction to the email on that whois. The OP didn't clarify which account it went to. (Still B2B, but feel this way is more impersonal)

Now if Freemarket took the time to scrape the domain from your Flippa public profile after seeing that you failed to sell a name and contact the whois email (or acquire it manually and compile a list of Flippa users/emails for B2B contacts) on the domain which is listed as the company about the domain that failed to sell at auction, I don't believe that would be considered spam. It's to the domain owner or broker at that point (as we all know some domains are owned by others, and brokered on Flippa-the first one may annoy the wrong person). This way, the seller receives the email and an offer of a 1-click, free free listing at low commission to try again. It's a good marketing strategy and I don't believe that crosses the line of being spam as it is a B2B contact. If this paragraph gave you motivation to go out there and contact domain owners yourself to broker it and you successfully sell it, congratulations, you're a domainer/broker--at least you're doing something proactive.

However, if this was on a mass campaign, as @Joseph Green pointed out, they did fail to do two things: clearly state that it is advertisement and provide an opt-out method (as well as the physical location of the company, but come on...). With that being mentioned, did you ever opt-in and are you going to receive another email? It's a fine line that can be argued as we as domainers have to comply with this as well, and for the most part, don't. We just strike them off the list if they don't respond, rather than bombard them. Clicking the link, you're opting in to their services and can receive whatever you want after-which. If you ignore the email, are you automatically unsubscribed? Those are questions that Freemarket would have to answer. If they are merely sending one email per failed auction and after 1 or 2 attempts to the seller they don't click the link, if they are striking them off the list, what differentiates what they did from what we do as a whole?

As far as Rakuten, that could have been through a partner agreement which I opted-in to through the registrar or even email account (there were just 3 in a row, so I threw them up in there) as @defaultuser pointed out.

I have to clarify my previous statement:

Nobody has this email address except this forum, one person mentioned and some it's on some privacy/public whois domains.

This forum has this email address, DNF has this email address, 2 registrars have this email address and anyone lurking the whois data on several hundred domains has this email address which is used as a "privacy shield" is a better way of stating it as I listed a person that is known to own DNF. Just being as transparent as I can.

As far as the email from RookMedia, it wasn't to the email in question, rather another email address that I used for domains listed on Sedo. So, RookMedia reached out to me with this:

Dear Mr.David,

My name is Sebastian Hauser and I work with RookMedia.net, a leading domain monetization company. We launched a little over 2 years ago now and our core team has over 55 years of domain industry experience.

I noticed that you are parking some domains with Sedo at the moment and I was wondering if you'd be interested in testing out our services?

If you are interested or if you have any questions at all please let me know

Thanks in advance

If anyone else received a similar email regarding Sedo parking, then RookMedia should be called out for spam as well (but as stated, he took a personal approach and one extra step to find the real owner and probably would have only sent one). However, like others, I opted to join their parking platform as it was targeted and written in such a way that if I didn't reply, he would have crossed me off the list. We can all safely say that ONE Chinese company crosses the line with multiple emails and even attacking you on social media to join.

So, as both @Eric_Lyon and I stated earlier, this all comes down to business ethics.

Who is going to be the deciding body to say that this is wrong for a large corporation to do, but okay for small portfolio holders? Nobody can. Because it's business to go out there and sell domains, whether you own 1 or 10000.

In summary with regards to what Freemarket has done, my stance is determined by whether this was ethical/illegal through the method that they utilized: send the email to the domain that failed to sell or the company which failed to sell the domain (as well as how many). If the latter, I say it's good to go. It's only questionable to send it to the email on the domain that failed to sell (in other words, one more step to find the real owner and target them so you don't send out more than necessary to the same person).

I've never listed a domain on Flippa.

To make this clearer, could you have been targeted because a domain you authorized someone else to sell on Flippa didn't sell, and they sent it to the owner and not seller?

Either way, we can safely say that this was an aggressive marketing campaign. If you were in charge, you may end up sending the same email. It all comes down to business ethics. Personally, I would take the extra step and send to the seller, rather than the domain owner, and only once (also clarify that by ignoring the email, they won't receive any further messages which subliminally states that it was an advertisement).

Since we can only speculate on the method they used to retrieve email addresses, simply report as spam and move on or take them up on their offer in my opinion.

 

[DomainGist]

As an aside..... I'd completely forgotten that freemarket existed. If its free to list then I may give it a whirl, OP is doing their marketing for them, lol.

 

[machej]

I received an email today from them. I don't really have a problem with it as they have an unsubscribe email and I get way more annoying emails asking if I want to buy a domain. The only issue is if you use whois privacy which forwards you have to unsubscribe each email. Overall they are being upfront with their service unlike many domain marketplaces.

 

[Kate]

Simply put, our industry is full of spammers, that must be one reason why we get the disrespect that we deserve. IMHO.

 

[HeyNow]

They are doing just what every domainer does!!!!

Speak for yourself. You know nothing.

 

[iowadawg]

I know enough that if you did not like my statement, you are part of the problem.

 

[Joseph Green]

@PugDomainsLtd

I already addressed that here.

Most marketplaces are free to list: Sedo, GoDaddy, Afternic, DomainNameSales, NamePros Auctions, etc. And they're all significantly larger than Freemarket, which might be why they don't feel the need to spam anyone. Or maybe they're just more respectable companies than Freemarket since David already reported that their parent company, Freelancer, are spammers as well.

I received an email today from them. I don't really have a problem with it as they have an unsubscribe email and I get way more annoying emails asking if I want to buy a domain. The only issue is if you use whois privacy which forwards you have to unsubscribe each email.

If you received the same email as me (first post of this thread), have you actually listed the domain on Flippa before? Just curious, because I hadn't.