Tucows Now Selling The Expired Domains They Kept From Their Customers

[DN BROKER]

Tucows Now Selling The Expired Domains They Kept From Their Customers
October 29th, 2008
source: domaining_com

Well it was bound to happen.

We have been talking about this issue for months.

Tucows.com has been building up a portfolio of hundreds of thousands of domains by taking ownership of expired domains of its customers instead of letting them drop or sending them to a public auction like, well, almost every other registrar in the world (there are over 900 registrars).

Tucows announced today that it has started Yummydomains.com to sell tens of thousands of those domains.

“”"”YummyNames, a new service providing exclusive access to a large selection of premium domain names from the Tucows Domain Name Portfolio. Created especially with marketers in mind, YummyNames allows people to search for and obtain the perfect domain name for their organization from tens of
thousands of high-quality domain names.”"”"”"

Nice.

This should help Tucows bottom line since the sales they devrive from the domains is 100% profit. After all they have no cost in the domain, they just took them, from their customers.

Some of the teaser names they list are countryrock.com,divorced.com, lemons.com, listener.com, mygarden.com, thepub.com, tool.com and veggies.com

Not only will Tucows sell the domains, but they will lease them as well.

Once again we think this practice should be outlawed by ICANN.

As far as we know this is the first site ever set up by a registrar to sell domains owned by the registrar which comprise domains taken from their ex-customers;

If I was a customer of Tucows who let their domain expire only to find the domain was kept by their registrar, and now see it for sale by my registrar, well that would piss me off.

I hope some of these customers raise up and yell like crazy.

YummyNames is just another reason for ICANN to take action to stop this practice once and for all.

Tucows share are down $.02 this morning at $.32.

 

[Premiere]

We had a lengthy duel over this topic which ultimately went no where. The fact that they hold their customers names is already mind-boggling to me. I think Tucows should be banned, but its likely that Icann in its slowness will do little or nothing.

Domain name skimming by registrars

 

[Frank Michlick]

Many other registrars subscribe to this practice as well. While I'm most certainly not for it, forbidding this practice is also likely to lead to regulation of pre-drop auctions such as the ones on Namejet, SnapNames and Afternic. So if we're asking for a change in policy, we should be clear on how those auctions should be handled.

 

[bobdigital]

isn't that what godddy did?
Create TDNAM to sell their customer's expired names?

 

[gladdy]

I do not understand how to search on yummynames.com every keyword I enter no results at all.

already solved, thx

 

[labrocca]

Once again we think this practice should be outlawed by ICANN.

I agree but imho...the best solution is that a commission should be paid to the registrar and the sold fee sent to the old registrant. I don't see why a registrar should be the ONLY people to profit from this situation.

 

[Premiere]

I don't see how you're going to get money to the old registrant. They are 80% of the time either unknown, bad contact info, deceased, moved on, or simply not interested. Auctions work fine.

 

[Pred]

i would love to see tucows lose it's accreditation and go under. they are scum and competely useless. shall we start an online vote. get enough signatures and icaan HAVE to sit up and take action.
who wants to do???

i will rep and give some np$ to whoever sets this up, if we all donate will be a little motivation

 

[labrocca]

I don't see how you're going to get money to the old registrant. They are 80% of the time either unknown, bad contact info, deceased, moved on, or simply not interested. Auctions work fine.

A one year escrow giving old registrant opportunity to claim wouldn't be hard to setup. Again..why should the registrant profit so immensely from this supply chain. Original registrant gets shafted. How often do we well someone with a domain they can't sell for $20 then sell for $200 in a drop auction. It's BS..the registrars are laughing their ass off. They take no risk. If the domains don't sell they drop. The domain was already captured or registered by them. For them it's a win-win and for original registrant it's a lose-lose...no domain and no profit.

 

[vlad74]

I requested a quote for one domain listed at yummynames yesterday, have not got any reply yet. Probably I should not have mentioned that I am a domainer and looking for a good pricing...

With regard to the whole issue, in my opinion their the only difference to godaddy is that they do not sell domain on auctions, rather keeping them. in general they both profit from people droping or forgoting to renew their domains. GD is a flipper (sells domains immediatly after they got them), tucows is a long term holder.

I agree that it would be logical to give or at least share profit from sales with former owners (I fully support this idea), but probably it will not be easy to implement administratively - if people are not extending their valuable domains it means they can not be reached by email, their credit card on file expired, etc. Further, I do not know what % of profit large registrars are earning on dropping names, but I am sure they all will fight to keep their profits from drops. GD has auctions, Name.com has, dynadot has, etc.

Thus I do not see much difference between these companies and tucows. they just take more risk holding long term vs registrars-flippers nowdays, as the domain value is fluctiuating a lot due to current crisis.

 

[AzN]

Congrats to apollo as well for his $2.8k sale to tucows [ http://www.afternic.com/bidhist.php?id=16250484 ]

 

[weblord]

wtg woot woot
:lala:
is this apollo of the Philippines?

Congrats to apollo as well for his $2.8k sale to tucows [ http://www.afternic.com/bidhist.php?id=16250484 ]

 

[QualityNames.com]

Personally, I do not see the difference between sending domain names to a third party and creating an aftermarket service yourself. The only thing, couldn't they come up with a better domain name than YummyNames?

 

[Dave_Z]

After all they have no cost in the domain

FYI, every registrar gets billed by the Registry the moment the domain name
expires. Every business venture, after all, has a cost somewhere.

They can get their money back if they drop that expired .com domain within
their 45-day grace period, though.

 

[labrocca]

Yeah Dave...getting billed is different than paying. It's no risk..they don't sell they don't pay. It's that simple. They might hold a few names they felt were good that maybe they even overpriced but in the end...it's easy money.

 

[singlem]

There is a very heated conversation going on between Rick Schwartz Elliott Noss and the ICA at http://www.thedomains.com/2008/10/31/tucows-responds-to-yummydomainscom/

 

[Dave_Z]

There is a very heated conversation going on between Rick Schwartz Elliott Noss and the ICA at http://www.thedomains.com/2008/10/31/tucows-responds-to-yummydomainscom/

Indeed. The gist of it is lots of people want more "equal opportunity" in being
able to grab a domain name, but it's working out the details that's going to be
a major headache.

 

[singlem]

let's Digg this article up and bring some attention to the matter once and for all. If we can get a mainstream site to pick it up it will benefit all domainers.

http://digg.com/tech_news/What_happens_to_your_domain_name_when_it_expires

 

[fuzzlepop]

All auctions should stop to, should just be available at regfee :hehe:

 

[gladdy]

Agree with you!

All auctions should stop to, should just be available at regfee :hehe: