16
Apr

Tucows holding back expired 4 letter .com’s

Archived in the category: Domain News
Posted by: Jamie Zoch -

Tucows auction format is not one of the most popular places, but from time to time they do have some good expired domains. So today I was playing around and searching for some domain names. I personally like 4 Letter .com domains and when I click Advanced Search and put in what I needed to display the 4 letter .com’s either coming up for auction or that are currently up for auction, I would get "We have found no results that match your search".

I found that a bit odd. So I went and used a "Secret" method and looked how many 4 letter .com’s Tucows REALLY has that are expired and should be at auction. Hmmmmmm 109…….

So they have 109 4 letter .com’s expired and not a single one is listed on their auction service. I guess all you can say is… That’s Interesting! I don’t know what’s up, but it doesn’t look good from my standpoint!

Here are the screen shots and I was using NameBids.com and the Advanced Search Feature. I also tried several other of their reseller auction sites and all had same results.

 

 

 

 

 

10 comments for “Tucows holding back expired 4 letter .com’s”

1
Craig C

I’d guess Tucows send names to auction when they please, rather than at the whim of the expiration cycle. If true, wouldn’t this be better as their control of an name is assured, rather than the potential a former registrant renews it at the last minute?

April 16th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
2

Interesting method of keeping domain names - to create a need and increase the $$ value of LLLL.com’s

April 17th, 2008 at 6:41 am
3

Hi Jamie,

I’m the General Manager of the Tucows Domain Portfolio and also oversee the Tucows auction.

Glad to hear you’re a fan of our auction.

Not all of the expired names end up in the Tucows auction. Some names are renewed by the original registrant before they reach the auction, and some of the names are retained by Tucows for our own portfolio (although we still allow the orginal registrant to reinstate the domain name if they want to). In other words, we go out of our way to protect the rights of the orginal registrant.

One final thing to keep in mind: expired names only start to show up in the Tucows auction approximately 32 days after they have expired.

Cheers,

Bill

**Jamie Says**

Hi Bill,

Thank you for your reply. I find this line pretty interesting. And I quote “some of the names are retained by Tucows for our own portfolio” Do you find this as Stealing? Warehousing? Shady business practice?

April 17th, 2008 at 6:58 am
4
Gazzip

Not that surprising yofie, they recently stated on domaintools blog that they keep what they want.

Tucows commented,

“Our strategy to acquire expiring domain names differs from that of some other large Registrars who have focused on domain name auctions. Tucows believes that there is substantial value in holding on to these domain names, both in terms of monetization through pay-per-click advertising, but also in terms of the resale or lease of high-value domains to individuals and businesses that understand the intrinsic value of a high-quality domain name.”

http://blog.domaintools.com/2008/02/tucows-portfolio/

Domainsite.com is also keeping names from what I can tell, a name I was after got renewed by them but does’nt show any whois info on it.

I think they’ll all be doing it soon.

April 17th, 2008 at 7:01 am
5

Jamie, you asked me if I consider Tucows retaining some expired names for our own portfolio “Stealing? Warehousing? Shady business practice?”. My answer is: none of the above. Tucows is an ICANN-accredited registrar, a publicly-traded company, and one of the oldest Internet companies in the world. We not only adhere to ICANN regulations, we exceed many of them. We also have one of the longest Grace Periods in the industry, and every day the Tucows team helps original registrants reinstate their domain names. I’m very proud of what we do and how we do it, and if I thought we were doing something illegal or unethical, I’d be the first person walking out the door.

**Jamie Says**

Thank you for the follow up Bill. To me as an investor, I feel that registrars have an unfair advantage in the industry with being “able” to obtain expired domain names for just the renewal fees of the domain name with no competition. If a registrar had to pay what the normal general public does for expired domains in auction, I would then consider it fair. Until ICANN addresses this issue, registrars will simply have the pick on what they want to keep, what to auction and what to really let expire.

April 17th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
6
Gazzip

Bill, so basically you are saying that it is Legal for Tucows to keep domains from going through their natural expiry process and then warehouse/monatize or sell them on for profit and its not a breach of the ICANN Registrar accreditation Agreement to which you have signed ?

Registrar shall abide by any ICANN-adopted policy prohibiting or restricting warehousing of or speculation in domain names by registrars.

or the General obligations of Registrars ?
Dbii - do not unreasonably restrain competition.

If its not then it sure is a conflict of interest to let Registrars act as if they own the domains to do as they please with.

Whats coming next, charge people $500 to let them renew it whilst in the redemtion period or you’ll just keep it for yourself ??

Deliberetly targetting owners in order to confiscate their domains for yourself just because their whois details are not 100% spot on ??

Not sending out email renewal notices because you want to keep the names for yourself ??

Its NUTS for ICANN to allow registrars to behave in the way you are, there is clearly a very big conflict of interest and a serious tust issue and I will definetly be transferring all my names away from Tucows as soon as possible.

Bill - If you owned a pub would you leave an alcoholic in charge of it when you went on holiday ? Of course you would’nt - Whats the difference ?

Its about time ICANN grew some balls and sorted this mess out.

It amazes me that even a new extension like the .eu seem to be doing something about this type of warehousing and speculating by so-called “registrars” and ICANN don’t do anything.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/5216118.stm

.

April 18th, 2008 at 11:36 am
7

Registrar shall abide by any ICANN-adopted policy prohibiting or restricting warehousing of or speculation in domain names by registrars.

And can you find any ICANN-adopted policy prohibiting or restricting warehousing of or speculation in domain names by registrars? Has warehousing even been defined to begin with?

Registrars may have an unfair advantage over the average user in being able to register a domain name. But keep in mind that registrars are not required to offer domain registration services to the public to begin with.

Of course, it never stops people from feeling otherwise…

April 20th, 2008 at 5:47 am
8

[…] The General Manager of the Tucows Domain Portfolio (Bill Sweetman) allegedly said “not all of the expired names end up in the Tucows auction. Some names are renewed by the […]

April 21st, 2008 at 7:58 am
9
qwerty

I honestly see a class action lawsuit brewing. Auctions pulled after being won. Domain not being released. Various renewal periods based on the desirability of the domain etc etc. Then moving on to the auction process. Names dropped into a auction pool instead of to everyone as ICANN rules state.

This is all just begging for a class action lawsuit.

June 26th, 2008 at 6:08 am
10

[…] names are retained by Tucows for our own portfolio" referring to expired domain names. Source: http://www.dotweekly.com/2008/04/16/tucows-holding-back-expired-4-letter-coms/#more-222 Comment # 3.   Ken Schafer says (Vice President, Marketing and Product Management at […]

July 12th, 2008 at 2:17 pm

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