Registrars Registering Domain Names for their Portfolio

[911waverly911]

Is it common practice for registrars to register domain names and keep them in their portfolio to re-sell them as premium names? I am not talking about a registrar owning a few domains that they use so people can find them online. I am referring to registrars owning hundreds or thousands of domains that are not related to their course of business.

I am a bit surprised that ICANN would allow this. Am I the only one that thinks that this is a conflict of interest? It doesn't cost them much to register a dropped name with the intent of selling it off for 100 - 200 times what it cost them to register it.

I was performing a domain search and found that two domains that I was interested in were both listed as premiums. Further research showed that they were both owned by the same entity, a registrar. Doing a search at archive.org showed snapshots for both as parked pages marketing the domains for sale.

What do you guys think?

 

[RapidNames.com]

Registrar can be domainer too. There is no restriction like registry / registrar / domain company etc.,

Start negotiating with them to get your lovable domains. This is 100% normal. JMO.

 

[FPForum]

This type of stuff has been happening for a while now. What many registrars have done is setup their own marketplace platforms. For example, NameBright/Andrew Reberry also owns HugeDomains. Hexonet owns PremiumSale.. GoDaddy bought a portfolio of domains from Marchex earlier this year for $28 million to resell themselves..

Registrars have long been buying domains themselves and flipping them for profit. Is it a conflict of interest? Anyone who doesn't have their own registrar would probably say so, lol. Still, registrars can drop catch deleting domains themselves, they can market the domains themselves, and they can also take the profits all for themselves as well. If a domain is registered with them and not renewed, they can do whatever they want with it before letting it get released to the public (and believe me, most will try whatever they can to make any penny off of it before it hits PendingDelete status). With the amount of money floating around in this industry many would do whatever is necessary to get their hands on the gold. If it were prohibited by ICANN then I believe most would do whatever they needed to in order to keep things going. It it meant setting up a second business under a different name then that's probably what would happen. There's just too much money in this industry for them to simply register, renew, and delete domains for their customers.

I doubt ICANN will do anything about this. If the registrar is paying their yearly renewal fee's then ICANN is getting their chunk of change from it. Welcome to the world of business, where money rules everything... lol

 

[mad409]

Everyone is a domainer now, even the companies launching new extensions. Must be legal...

 

[tonyk2000]

It is not that easy... See, for example, the following Notice of Breach to Registrar "Register.com Inc." issued by ICANN on 11 September 2013:
Quote begin

Section 1.11 of the RAA defines Registrar Services as “services provided by a registrar in connection with a TLD as to which it has an agreement with the TLD's Registry Operator, and includes contracting with Registered Name Holders, collecting registration data about the Registered Name Holders, and submitting registration information for entry in the Registry Database.”
Register.com identified 62,232 domains that have Register.com as the registrant. As detailed
in the chronology below, ICANN sent three notices (and multiple follow-up notices)
requesting information how the 62,232 domains are used for the purposes of Registrar
Services as defined by Section 1.11 of the RAA. Register.com and ICANN held a
conference call to discuss this matter. To date, Register.com has not provided any
information regarding this request.
...
ICANN requests that Register.com cure the breaches by 2 October 2013, 15 working days
from the date of this letter, by taking the following actions:

Provide a detailed explanation to ICANN how 62,232 domains in which Register.com
itself is the registrant are used for the purposes of Registrar Services, as defined by
Section 1.11 of the RAA;
Quote end.

Reading legal agreements may be interesting indeed. For example, Verisigns Registry-Registrar Agreement clearly states that
"Registrar agrees that in the event of significant degradation of the System or other emergency, or upon Registrar's violation of Operational Requirements or breach of this Agreement, Verisign may, in its sole discretion, temporarily suspend or restrict access to the System. Such temporary suspensions or restrictions shall be applied in a nonarbitrary manner and shall apply fairly to any registrar similarly situated."
I beleive that _some_ dropcatching registrars had this applied to them in the past, and it also appears that _some_ other dropcatching registrars may experience the same in future. Indeed, what a violation of Operational Requirements means in practical sense is the following - unfair advantage in dropcatching game

 

[FPForum]

It is not that easy... See, for example, the following Notice of Breach to Registrar "Register.com Inc." issued by ICANN on 11 September 2013:
Quote begin

Section 1.11 of the RAA defines Registrar Services as “services provided by a registrar in connection with a TLD as to which it has an agreement with the TLD's Registry Operator, and includes contracting with Registered Name Holders, collecting registration data about the Registered Name Holders, and submitting registration information for entry in the Registry Database.”
Register.com identified 62,232 domains that have Register.com as the registrant. As detailed
in the chronology below, ICANN sent three notices (and multiple follow-up notices)
requesting information how the 62,232 domains are used for the purposes of Registrar
Services as defined by Section 1.11 of the RAA. Register.com and ICANN held a
conference call to discuss this matter. To date, Register.com has not provided any
information regarding this request.
...
ICANN requests that Register.com cure the breaches by 2 October 2013, 15 working days
from the date of this letter, by taking the following actions:

Provide a detailed explanation to ICANN how 62,232 domains in which Register.com
itself is the registrant are used for the purposes of Registrar Services, as defined by
Section 1.11 of the RAA;
Quote end.

Reading legal agreements may be interesting indeed. For example, Verisigns Registry-Registrar Agreement clearly states that
"Registrar agrees that in the event of significant degradation of the System or other emergency, or upon Registrar's violation of Operational Requirements or breach of this Agreement, Verisign may, in its sole discretion, temporarily suspend or restrict access to the System. Such temporary suspensions or restrictions shall be applied in a nonarbitrary manner and shall apply fairly to any registrar similarly situated."
I beleive that _some_ dropcatching registrars had this applied to them in the past, and it also appears that _some_ other dropcatching registrars may experience the same in future. Indeed, what a violation of Operational Requirements means in practical sense is the following - unfair advantage in dropcatching game

Most registrars who are big in the expired domain game (Not very sure about Register.com) are well aware of these rules. Believe me, they've already done (and continue to do) whatever is necessary to keep things going. It's like I mentioned above - When good money is involved these guys prefer to leave as little to "chance" as possible.

VeriSign says that one registrar cannot degrade VeriSign's system. Oh no! What on Earth will they do to avoid that? Oh wait..Why not just setup multiple registrars. In fact, heck with multiple..Let's do DOZENS!

Have a glance at the list of ICANN accredited registrars here..do a search for the registrars/companies that you know are involved with drop catching and buying/selling expired domains for profit: DropCatch, Pheenix, DynaDot, eNom

What is it that you notice about them? Do they have 1 accredited registrar? 2? 3?..No, they have dozens. That's exactly how you get around the VeriSign Registrar Agreement which you spoke about.

One thing about this thread is the OP talks about ICANN...I guess ICANN might try to monitor/regulate how many domains a registrar owns for themselves. But, the above doesn't really state anything about it being related to selling for profit. We also don't know exactly what "purpose of registrar services" means, unless someone wants to look up Section 1.11 of the RAA, lol.. With regards to expired domains, I don't think things really go up quite that high. It's really about the registries themselves. VeriSign for COM/NET, Donuts for most the new extensions, SIDN for .NL, Afilias for .INFO..so on and so fourth. Each has their own agreements that companies must meet. Maybe that's why companies like DropCatch/Pheenix..etc only deal in VeriSign extensions (COM/NET/CC/TV)