Hosts.com - How Name.com defrauded me out of a great backorder

[GoWebnames.com]

Ok, here is a recap of what happened in short in last 10 days:

1) I was checking expiring names at Name.com and saw Hosts.com available for backorder since the original owner didn't renew it for some reason best known to him. Couldn't believe someone would let it expire, it's registered since 1998

2) Since Name.com accepts only 1 backorder per available name, I placed a backorder immediately and double checked to make sure if backorder was not available to anyone else. Soon as I placed a backorder, Hosts.com said it was not available for any other backorders.

3) The backorder was SUCCESSFUL and CONFIRMED to me by Name.com on my email (see screenshot)

4) 4 days later, I saw my backorder change to not available in my name.com account and when I checked Hosts.com again, it showed to be available as a PREMIUM NAME with Name.com

5) When I enquired with Name.com, they gave a vague answer saying backorder is only possible when Name is available.

6) I enquired through their interface, they gave me a BIN price of $175,000 for Hosts.com

Can you believe it? Name.com just defrauded me out of a great backorder and kept the name for themselves.

I am trying to talk to them , let's see what comes up.

Is there any possibility of a law suit here in case they don't transfer the name?

Here are the screenshots:

 

[Keith]

What's the point of speculation? Research and find out or move on imho.

The speculation period ended when a rep for Rightside.co, aka Name.com, emailed the OP:

Name.com is the registrar of record for hosts.com and a subsidiary of Rightside.co. I work with Rightside and we are the current owners of the domain. If you would like to present your best offer I will certainly discuss it with my team.

How did Rightside come to own the domain? It clearly didn't go thru the "normal" expiration process that all others do. It doesn't take a genius to solve the puzzle here.

 

[DU]

How did Rightside come to own the domain? It clearly didn't go thru the "normal" expiration process that all others do. It doesn't take a genius to solve the puzzle here.

Are you asking me to speculate? Or are you telling me the answer?
If your research shows that the original registrant didn't renew and the registrar of record renewed name and kept it for themselves then I could argue that this is one of the many "normal" processes. I think that "all others do" is a bit off - ever bought a name at pre-release NameJet or Snapnames? TDNAM? Welcome to the "normal".

 

[chickenfillet]

The speculation period ended when a rep for Rightside.co, aka Name.com, emailed the OP:

Name.com is the registrar of record for hosts.com and a subsidiary of Rightside.co. I work with Rightside and we are the current owners of the domain. If you would like to present your best offer I will certainly discuss it with my team.

How did Rightside come to own the domain? It clearly didn't go thru the "normal" expiration process that all others do. It doesn't take a genius to solve the puzzle here.

Agreed, it's obvious from your comment.

Are you asking me to speculate? Or are you telling me the answer?
If your research shows that the original registrant didn't renew and the registrar of record renewed name and kept it for themselves then I could argue that this is one of the many "normal" processes. I think that "all others do" is a bit off - ever bought a name at pre-release NameJet or Snapnames? TDNAM? Welcome to the "normal".

If you're looking to argue, go on another forum. There has been so much evidence presented in this thread, that shows Name.com did something which should not have been done. Why haven't Name.com replied to this thread? I contacted them to reply to this thread, and they haven't done so.

If murder becomes "normal", does that make it legal or ethical? If everyone is dying around you and you get murdered too, it's not so bad, right? Just because you wrote "Welcome to the 'normal'" doesn't mean it isn't illegal or unethical.

I might as well put up a porn star avatar, and see all my posts being liked too. Psychology, much? 90% Male forum + Pornstar Avatar = All posts being liked.

 

[Keith]

Are you asking me to speculate? Or are you telling me the answer?
If your research shows that the original registrant didn't renew and the registrar of record renewed name and kept it for themselves then I could argue that this is one of the many "normal" processes. I think that "all others do" is a bit off - ever bought a name at pre-release NameJet or Snapnames? TDNAM? Welcome to the "normal".

I'm telling you the answer. Name.com renewed the domain purely for financial gain.

Now, I've seen them chime in at NP before. I'll die holding my breath as we await their reply to this thread. Are you out there Name?

 

[DU]

If you're looking to argue, go on another forum. There has been so much evidence presented in this thread, that shows Name.com did something which should not have been done. Why haven't Name.com replied to this thread? I contacted them to reply to this thread, and they haven't done so.

I'm not looking to argue. I'm telling you the way it is - name.com did something that is very common that just about everyone on this forum has taken advantage of at some point in time. When you win that GoDaddy auction where do you think that domain came from? When you get Namejet pre-release, where do you think that name came from? These are names that are expired. There's a reason that the domain age doesn't die with these auctions.

People are complaining because it doesn't work the way the way they want. Too fucking bad, that's how the system works.If you don't like it? Get together the people and someone with legal expertise and force ICAN to do something. Don't complain if the net results aren't to your liking. The side effects of legal changes are often not understood until after implementation.

If murder becomes "normal", does that make it legal or ethical? If everyone is dying around you and you get murdered too, it's not so bad, right? Just because you wrote "Welcome to the 'normal'" doesn't mean it isn't illegal or unethical.

There's on teeny tiny minor difference - what Name.com did is not illegal and many would say it's not even unethical. I think it's unethical but what I think doesn't matter and my standards are different than yours. I find a lot of general domainer activity unethical. A LOT of it.

Take your example and make it more similar to reality rather than some bogus strawman. Domains were never intended to be hoarded or bought and sold for profit by investors yet I surmise you would call it legal and ethical and very normal. You would likely find fault with someone else who dared say otherwise.

So, as I said, you and many others want to have their cake and eat it too.

I might as well put up a porn star avatar, and see all my posts being liked too. Psychology, much? 90% Male forum + Pornstar Avatar = All posts being liked.

She's a pornstar? Actually, you really have no idea do you? I trade bjs for likes.

Now, I've seen them chime in at NP before. I'll die holding my breath as we await their reply to this thread. Are you out there Name?

I'll do it for them and save them the effort:
Name.com is the registrar of record for hosts.com and a subsidiary of Rightside.co. Rightside are the current owners of the domain. If you would like to present your best offer I will certainly pass it on.

If you pushed them further:
We may make expired domain name services(s) available to third parties, we may auction off the rights to expired domain name services (the auction beginning close to the end or after the end of the reactivation period), and/or expired domain name registration services may be re-registered to any party at any time.

If you really pushed them:
We have a kegerator. We used to be cool until Mushkin sold us out for cash interest.

Full Disclosure: I currently have 4 names with them (2 I can't move, and 2 I will next expiry)

 

[DU]

All posts being liked.

If you want to increase your likes, I have a way of making that happen....

 

[chickenfillet]

Name.com is the registrar of record for hosts.com and a subsidiary of Rightside.co. Rightside are the current owners of the domain. If you would like to present your best offer I will certainly pass it on.

Do you have any idea what the 1st & 2nd sentences above mean? If you did, you wouldn't have bothered to write the rest of your essay long post. Here, let me help you out.

Name.com is the registrar of record for hosts.com and a subsidiary (company controlled by a holding company) of Rightside.co. Rightside (Name.com) are the current owners of the domain.

If you can't understand the wording above, try this:

Name.com is the registrar of record for hosts.com and a subsidiary (less important than but related or supplementary to) of Rightside.co. Rightside (Name.com) are the current owners of the domain.

Name.com are cheeky when using words such as 'subsidiary' because no one knows what it means.

So, as I said, you and many others want to have their cake and eat it too.

They stole the cake, without anyone having an opportunity to bid for the cake at auction. If they wanted the cake so badly, why couldn't they have bought it like all of us do? It's called theft.

I don't care about the domain name hosts.com, and have no interest in it. What I do care about are rich greedy individuals who think they have the right to renew expired domain names, without anyone else getting an equal chance of obtaining it.

That is why expiring domain public auctions exist, so everyone has an equal chance (disregarding money) of acquiring it. If Name.com wanted to acquire it legitimately, they would have bidded in an expired domain auction, or something legally similar.

Everyone says Name.com would have a 0% chance of catching hosts.com if it dropped. Then how did Name.com acquire the domain name, if they had a 0% chance of catching hosts.com? Because it never got to the stage of dropping, they just renewed it and claimed ownership without allowing anyone else an equal chance of getting it.

Do you understand?

 

[Keith]

Not going to quote Defaults post but this is not how Godaddy and pre-release at Namejet work. If you really believe that it's the same, I suggest you study each process and get back to us.

Epik is almost as bad as Name where ethics are concerned. But at least they actually catch drops before cheating their customers out of exclusive backorders.

 

[DU]

Not going to quote Defaults post but this is not how Godaddy and pre-release at Namejet work. If you really believe that it's the same, I suggest you study each process and get back to us.

The difference is negligible. If you believe they are very different you should explain how and educate us all.

To me:

In one instance according to chicken is that name.com stole the name to sell for profit at a future time.

In one instance the name is sold at auction while they don't have rights to the name and then those names are "stolen" and transferred.

Both cases the name transfers ownership. One with immediate profit and one with later profit.

If the name had gone to auction and sold for 175,000 (assuming thats the askibf price) would that have made things in any way materially different? It's just a question of timing.

From the point of view if the original registrant the result is the same either way. He doesn't own the domain.

So what is you or chickens answer to the following:

It wasn't stolen from registrant as he lost his right by failing to renew. If you consider that stolen then isn't every pre-release type auction theft? In fact no name would ever be allowed to drop.

If the name no longer belonged to the registrant then the question is how was the name stolen. Who was the name stolen from? Perhaps you mean the right to steal was stolen from everyone? Or the name should drop and the right to try and catch was stolen from everyone.

If the name is sold at pre-release for profit via auction how is that more or less legal/ethical than selling it after expiry? That steals the right from everyone at the drop. That puts pure profit in the hands of registrars.

Do all other names go to pre-release auction? No they don't.

Keep deluding yourself that something here is somehow more wrong than others. If you can prove that name.com failed to make proper notifications on expiry then you have a valid argument of something.

In the meantime good luck continuing your hunt for great expiring names at auction. Particularly those old aged valuable ones that the deceased failed to protect for the benefit of their family.


//Sorry about spacing - it's a phone editor.

 

[DU]

I don't care about the domain name hosts.com, and have no interest in it. What I do care about are rich greedy individuals who think they have the right to renew expired domain names, without anyone else getting an equal chance of obtaining it.

Like Namejet, Godaddy.....

That is why expiring domain public auctions exist, so everyone has an equal chance (disregarding money) of acquiring it. If Name.com wanted to acquire it legitimately, they would have bidded in an expired domain auction, or something legally similar.

No, they exist because it's pure profit to the registrar.

Do you understand?

The question is, do you?

 

[Keith]

Again I'm not quoting but I'll explain it as clear as possible.

Godaddy and Namejet operate as follows:
1. Domain expires
2. "Pre-release" starts where anyone can bid. No bids, no renewal, domain deletes.

Name.com
1. Domain expires
2. They renew before any bidding, keep domain for themselves, and hold for ransom.

See the difference,

 

[DU]

I won't quote you either as a courtesy.

Scenario 1 bullet 2 is false for namejet.
Scenario 1 doesn't exist for many registrars.

Difference is a minor technicality imho, if you want to believe one is more ethical than the other go ahead. I'll disagree on the basis that they are not.

 

[discobull]

Again I'm not quoting but I'll explain it as clear as possible.

Godaddy and Namejet operate as follows:
1. Domain expires
2. "Pre-release" starts where anyone can bid. No bids, no renewal, domain deletes.

Name.com
1. Domain expires
2. They renew before any bidding, keep domain for themselves, and hold for ransom.

See the difference,

I don't agree that there's a huge distinction between the two, but let's say for argument's sake that you're right and that the namejet/godaddy business model is ethical and legal, but what name.com did is not. So what? The best you've managed to prove in that case is that Name.com could ethically/legally put the domain up for auction. How does that translate into the OP being awarded the domain for the 50 bucks he paid them?

As far as I know, there's nothing in the icann regulations that obligates name.com to give the OP an expiring domain for the price of a backorder. The only way I can see him winning is if he can produce a contract or TOS stating something to the effect that a backorder guarantees ownership of an expiring domain registered through Name.com. I have a feeling that if such a thing existed we would have heard about it by now.

 

[Keith]

How does that translate into the OP being awarded the domain for the 50 bucks he paid them?

Nobody has suggested that the OP should get the name for $50.

 

[discobull]

Nobody has suggested that the OP should get the name for $50.

Actually, I'm pretty sure that not getting the domain for 50 bucks is the reason the thread was started.

 

[Name Trader]

@defaultuser - I think the speculation about Name.com hijacking the domain is just as much speculation, until ICANN hear from them.

 

[DU]

@defaultuser - I think the speculation about Name.com hijacking the domain is just as much speculation, until ICANN hear from them.

Just going to be another one of those domain name issues that will never be fully cleared up because there's simply no reason to clear it up. Right now the whois indicates the owner of the name. That is the only form of title or evidence needed to prove ownership and provide rights to sale.

Besides some people thinking that there is an ethical difference between auctioning and renewing a name vs keeping and renewing a name, there's simply nothing to see here unless someone is going to be influential enough to force ICANN to adopt new rules.

 

[Name Trader]

Yep. Understand all that. But the whois is showing privacy enabled, so we have no idea who actually owns the domain. Actually, it's not my beef, so I don't care who owns it

 

[chickenfillet]

Yep. Understand all that. But the whois is showing privacy enabled, so we have no idea who actually owns the domain. Actually, it's not my beef, so I don't care who owns it

Oh my goodness, do you even read? Do you seriously not know who owns the domain? Really? It's been quoted multiple times in this thread. Do you still not know? I will help you out.

"Name.com is the registrar of record for hosts.com and a subsidiary of Rightside.co. I work with Rightside and we are the current owners of the domain. If you would like to present your best offer I will certainly discuss it with my team."

 

[equity78]

@defaultuser John I know where you are coming from but I think there is some distinction of note, whether anyone should be able to auction off domain names and make money from it is a discussion worth having, I think there are plenty against that and some are actual domainers, one might say they feel that way because they don't have the budget to compete with a Brad Mugford or Mike Berkens or hundreds of other well financed domain investors.

I think what Name.com is doing by not letting a name drop and go to auction is a separate issue, look Go Daddy would love to keep the great names that expire at their registry, they could hold any LLL.com or NNN through NNNNN.com to sell how and where they see fit.

They used to have an entity that warehoused domains and got taken to task by many in the industry and stopped that.

Not every domain that Go Daddy or NameJet auctions off is the result of someone having a hardship, I let ZZTV.org, it was at Fabulous so when someone picked it up on NameJet I got a %,of that $69 bid, that is what I would like to see all the registrars do,set up a scenario where the previous registrant gets a piece of the proceeds. Fabulous and Above.com have put that mechanism into place.

If someone wants to say well no one should have the ability to profit from a dropped name, let it drop and fastest to register it wins, that is a separate discussion, but we all know that would be gamed too, those with the resources would set up a system that not all the Netizens of the world would have an equal chance to get a domain name when it dropped.

 

[DU]

There are much more equitable ways of name delegation and I would be a proponent of most of them.

Realistically there is abuse of every system at every level. Domaining is a small business so it's not high on any radar. Domaining (and all its side businesses) does tend to reward the less savory aspects of business ethics.

None of this means it can't change but it would take a huge collective effort to even get someone relevant to notice.

And that's all I will say

What fabulous does is nice for its customers.

 

[Name Trader]

@chickenfillet - This maybe a gaff on the salesman's part. But I would want it to be independently verified.

@equity78 - Don't Network Solutions do that also, or have they stopped paying out a share of the auction value?

@defaultuser - I think the domain industry isn't going to change its ways of operating for a long time to come

 

[equity78]

@stub I think they do something for their customers you are right, I need to get the specifics.

 

[Dave_Z]

those with the resources would set up a system that not all the Netizens of the world would have an equal chance to get a domain name when it dropped.

IIRC, that's essentially how Yun Ye and Kevin Ham (I think) started until they reached where they are now. And this was before the domain-redemption period thing began.

 

[venturefile.com]

Nothing yet. Guess ICANN receives many complaints a day! Had written to few domainers with blogs with reference of this thread, guess no one cares to highlight the issue if it doesn't suit their interests.

Well what you can do is write a blog post yourself and then buy a headline on Domaining.com.. That should put your story in front of thousands of people..