I was just informed by Bill Sweetman, General Manager of YummyNames.com and Tucows.com that starting today (2-9-2009) that expiring Tucows.com domain names will now head to NameJet.com to be auctioned off.
Tucows made the following announcement in a press release:
Tucows will now exclusively use NameJet to auction Tucows’ large inventory of expired domain names.
NameJet is a domain name aftermarket auction company that consolidates an exclusive inventory of expired and deleted domains from top domain name registrars and makes them available for auction.
Starting today (February 9, 2009), thousands of daily expired domain names from Tucows will be available for auction to the general public on the NameJet Website.
We’re pleased to be working with NameJet to auction our expired domain names, and we look forward to these names being made available to a wide audience of bidders through NameJet.
Back in June 2008, Tucows had selected Afternic.com as it’s exclusive auction house to sell off it’s expired domain names and it appears that something didn’t work out.
I have sent a couple questions to Bill about why they will no longer be using Afternic.com and will report on that when or if I hear back or if he can comment on it.
Lars
Hi Jamie,
Doesn’t Tucows hold onto the better dropping domains and later sell them through YummyNames?
Will they still be doing that or will they now send all of the dropping names to Namejet?
RKB
Looks like namejet is getting way ahead of the competitors these day.
Jamie Zoch
@ Lars
Tucows.com has been very public about keeping some expired domain names for their portfolio and yes many of these domain names are listed on YummyNames.com . Will they continue to do this? It is likely, but they do let some nice ones expire. I can only hope that they drop ALL from now on, but I personally think sooner or later, ICANN will prevent what they are doing by keeping expiring domains without allowing others a fair chance at obtaining the domains. Heck, with NameJet prices sometimes, they should consider letting ALL expire because many can go for End User prices, because End Users do shop at NameJet and SnapNames.