When Tucows announced they would be sending expired domain names to Afternic.com I was happy. So I did all my home work and found several domains that I liked right away (about 40). I put all these domains in to Afternic and all were listed as expired domain auctions. So I watched them in My Domain Alerts at Afternic and was ready to place my order the day before the auctions were to start….
All this week, domains in my watch list were their one day, gone the next. This can happen as these are Expired Domains and people renew them. UFO.net was one and I spoke with the owner and he did renew it. He said he had simply forgot about the renewal.
Now domains like Zira.com, Woodchip.com, ParkRangers.com, PcPrices.com and OrgX.com were all sure bids on my part. I got an email from Afternic about Zira.com yesterday "Unfortunately the following domain(s) have been withdrawn from auction and are no longer available." Zira.com
Again, no biggy as I’m sure the owner renewed it…. I mean it was in the fitting time frame of the expired dates. It was also on the servers Tucows uses for expired domains. Well I checked whois and Tucows has owned Zira.com since around 12-05-2006 (whois history’s first listing with Tucows as the owner)!
Woodchip.com, ParkRangers.com and OrgX.com just dissapeared from My Domain Alerts with No Email from Afternic. Hmmmm Well again Tucows owns all 3 according to whois.
The fact is, Tucows/Afternic listed a great deal of domain names Tucows owned on Afternic and now have been removing them. Was this a clerical error? Just a mix up in the new adventure? A way to draw a buzz to the new match up? Just a mistake?
I know I am upset as all my hard work researching the domains went out the window since all the domains I was watching are now gone and no longer listed on Afternic. Will I be doing this hard work again, to only have it happen a second time? No. Tucows did have the right to "renew" the domains which would remove the listings from Afternic, but all these domains should of never made it to Afternic in the first place IMO.
Bill Sweetman
Hi Jamie,
I am sorry to hear that you’ve experienced some frustrations attempting to bid on some Tucows expired names on Afternic … especially after you blogged so enthusiastically about about our new collaboration with Afternic.
Here’s what happened: during the transition from the old Tucows Auction to the new Afternic relationship, over 100,000 expired domain names were loaded into the Afternic marketplace. Unfortunately, there was a technical error that led to some names (a small percentage of the original set) being listed in the Afternic marketplace that should not have been listed. These names were later removed from the marketplace, and the error that caused them to be listed in the first place has been corrected.
Normally, however, names would only be removed from the marketplace if the original registrant renewed them.
I do hope this experience will not stop you from participating in the auction in the future. And feel free to email me anytime with your feedback on the auction. (I will send you my contact info in a moment.)
Regards,
Bill Sweetman
General Manager, Domain Portfolio
Tucows
Bart
Yeah, I know what you mean. UFO.net was also in my watchlist, but there’re still some cool names over there.