I will tell you my view.
Only a short while ago Afternic did a very ugly thing to all its domain members. I want to make a note here that today Afternic is now owned by a different person. When the Collin brothers owned it, they had no regard at all for the thousands of domainers who built Afternic because they sent a email announcing that hundreds of thousands of names up for sale in Afternic were now INSTANTLY going to be deleted. These names were adult in content. While I have no problem with that decision, it was the poor management stlye that showed their primary objective. If you were a domainer and you had your adult or gambling names in Afternic for sale or parked for years and years, then one day you get a email that you have to take them out immediately you too would think they have managment problems right?
Mr. Phil Collins who is now the acting President of Ica was the (with his brother) owner of Afternic at that time.
These two brothers wanted to make these changes to try to get Afternic to go public. Bottom line, for more profits they did not care to take into consideration the very people who made them who they were.
This was no little thing, as every domainer had to go thru moving all adult names out. Like I say its not that they chose to not sell adult names. The thing that pissed me and many many members off, was the fact they GAVE NO WARNING to domainers who were loyal to them. Simply one day everything adult related is getting kicked out of Afternic. Many had thousands of such names there.
If you have partners, you keep them in the loop regarding big changes. The owners of Afternic at that time did not care to do this. Phil and Michael Collins who were the owners of Afternic only cared about what they wanted, to sell Afternic and to hell with what domainers have to go thru.
So why talk about all this?
I question the management style of Mr Collins who is the paid President of Ica. I looked at his management style from the Afternic clean out and my disgust was the lazy way they went about pulling the rug out from under all their domain partners. It was a BIG inconvenience and it was a BIG loss of time and money to have to move each of these domains in less than a few days!
Their comments to us who had adult names and even gambling names that were to be kicked out of Afternic was it was the responsible thing to do as these names were immoral. They said these domains give the domain community a bad name. Don't get the impression that they cared about morality. You can be a very moral person and own these names, hell these same owners encouraged these names to sell and be parked in Afternic for years, so the sudden shift of policy had nothing to do with morals. If you had any kind of name with even a hint of gambling in the name it too was pulled. Morals?
Bullshit!
A couple weeks after the big clean out of all adult and all gambling domains, Mr. Collins, (Michael) was seen in a photo displayed in the Domain Journal from a Traffic convention with his arms and hands raking in a big pile of money he just WON GAMBLING!
Hypocrites is all I can say about the Collins brothers.
If Afternic had gave domainers a one year, or at least six months to find new parking partners and a new auction house for their domains I would be right now saying they were putting loyal domainers first. They did not.
So I have little doubt that domainers interest are being put first like Rick S. says with the prior poor organization skills and Mr. Collins lazy attidude.
That complete meltdown when this mess was happening in Afternic was a direct result of Phil and Michael Collins management style. It was all about those two managers not working with its partners in the "clean out" of adult domains.
Personally I had a hard time trying to understand WHY Mr. Collins was chosen as the President and for a paid position in Ica. That is why I have not sent a dime to them. I have no problems with Afternic now and trust Pete Plamson does not act in a way that does not take its partners into consideration when announcing new policy changes in Afternic.
This thread is not about Afternic, yet past management style of Phil Collins is used to show why I care not for the leadership of Ica today.
Sounds like Rick is looking out for domainers to me.
Roderick Pagnossin
