Domain Name Dispute

If DollarDomainName.com is ICANN-accredited, you could contact ICANN about this and report it. But according to the list, they are independent. I'm honestly not sure - you could try contacting a lawyer, but definitely ask for a refund.

Thanks Marc for this excellent resource:

http://www.icann.org/registrars/accredited-list.html

I will never again buy a domain based on price alone without first checking to see that the so-called registrar is listed here!

SW Go Daddy software is the lowest I have found. Although that list is just cool. Thats a real bummer what happened to you. They are at http://www.godaddy.com and they're in the list. $8.95 a domain.

Quote: Originally posted by SW Reynolds
this same name was taken by someone else on Dec 21st - 3 full weeks AFTER I renewed mine!

That sounds fishy. Even if you hadn't renewed the name, 3 weeks is very quick for it to be released on the market, never mind bought by someone else.

On what date was the name due for renewal?

It was due for renewal on Nov 4th. I actually paid the fee on Nov 30th (online by credit card), and received a confirmation email the same day indicating that the domain had been successfully renewed by me. The other individual - according to Whois - got the domain on Dec 21st. I do not know whether it was fishy, or sheer incompetence on their part. In either case, I now warn everyone away from dollardomainname.com (they also go under the moniker "reservemydotcom.com").

It doesn't matter much if they are accredited -- Verisign (NetSol) aren't any more ethical. (Click link to read the sordid details).

What an incredible story - if Verisign/Netsol can be so thoroughly incompetent, then there is trouble on the horizon. This whole thing has the potential to really screw up people's businesses - and by extension the reliabiliy of ecommerce - if the "governing body" does not embrace ironclad regulations that everyone must adhere to in handling domains. To me, it's really kinda' simple - who paid for it first; and no transfers without legal ownership.

The site that Marc suggested in his posting does have a "dispute resolution" section, so as soon as my time allows, I will begin educating myself about the options:

http://www.icann.org/udrp/

Quote: Originally posted by SW Reynolds
It was due for renewal on Nov 4th. I actually paid the fee on Nov 30th (online by credit card), and received a confirmation email the same day indicating that the domain had been successfully renewed by me. The other individual - according to Whois - got the domain on Dec 21st. I do not know whether it was fishy, or sheer incompetence on their part. In either case, I now warn everyone away from dollardomainname.com (they also go under the moniker "reservemydotcom.com").

How many days is your grace period for renewing? That's a whole month you are talking about, unless you posted the wrong month?

Sara

I am not exactly sure what the grace period is for this company. Unless I mis-understand the procedure, it seems that when I check the domain, see it is still available (I was admittedly late in renewing), make my payment, get a receipt (and a confirmation that it was renewed in my name), then it seems not unreasonable to expect that I have successfully retained it. Especially when the other individual is on record for a full 3 weeks later.

Now if I had tried on Nov 30th and found that it had been taken on Nov 21st, then as the old saying goes, "he who hesitates is lost". Such was not the case here however, and at the very least, I'd say that an explanation is due to me. All they said was sorry, you can have your $20 back (which I've refused).

If I did business like this, I'd not have any business to do...

I'm sorry this happened to you, but the reason I have one of my domains is the exact same thing that happened to you. I'm sure there is a FAQ that states how many days you have from the time they contact you to renew, before it goes up for grabs.

And I understand what you are saying, but, look at it from their point of view. You didn't renew in the required window of time, when you did renew you were probably sent a form comfirmation email. Once they realized their error in sending you that, yes, they should have contacted you. They should have explained that it was sent in error and given you a second chance at that time to renew the site. They also should have credited your CC at that time.

I make sure to renew the month before it's due. Only way to prevent this from happening to me!

Sara

Sara, wouldn't that be the same thing -- renew or get in the first place, it shouldn't matter if the domain had been released or not, he still had it first. ?? Maybe I'm missing something.

Your point, Suzanne, is my point - either we can trust what we are told, or we can't. If we can't, then something is wrong and it needs to be fixed. People cannot pay for a domain, begin investing in site design, graphics, promo stuff, etc, and then be told "nevermind - someone else is taking that name instead of you".

I was hoping that the ICANN accreditation would mean something, but maybe it is a hollow label too.

For sure I will renew my domains a month in advance from now on, so there has been a lesson learned. But that is a tangent to the issue, and I am left wondering how many other times this experience of mine is happening out in cyberspace??

The fact that it has happened more than once just on this forum is cause for concern...

Now that really stinks. I haven't ever bought a Domain name, but I am planning to soon. This helps me to know who to and not to use. Won't be using Verisign or DollarDomainName.com. Hope you get this cleared up.

Two years ago, May 2000, dot.com portfolios had crashed but tech stocks were still pretty fat, declining yes but the full impact of what was to come had not been realized. I think the squeeze that all the registrars are feeling now is the result of stock speculators also speculating in names, buying 2 year renewals. No way are those guys going to be renewing now. Even if there weren't all those extra tlds... But there are, and everyone who bought up every permutation is going to see the futility in that and let all but the primary, .com or .org, etc expire. Time to sell names short, if only we could...

To all those who replied to my posting... thank you. I only today (06/05) received an email pointing me to the new Webmasters-Forum address - I had thought the site went down, because I kept getting a DNS error.

If the experience of these Webmaster-Forums folks does not seal my point - that SOMETHING MUST BE DONE!! to protect domain names, then I don't know what will make that point.

Imagine someone deciding they wanted your phone number, or street address, or social security number, so they figured out a way to just take it - that is what we are dealing with here, and I wonder what the powers-that-be (ICANN??) are doing to put a stop to it.

The stealing of domains has the potential to be a train wreck in motion...

I always use NetSol (the dot com people). Been using them for years. I don't mind paying $35 per year it's a small price to pay when you are running an online business.

No one can take a domain until after it expires. I always renew 1-2 months before domain expires. Some domain registrars take forever to renew a domain and people back order them so as soon as they expire they can grab them.

When my web design business is really making lots of money I'm going to sue the pants off the company who is squatting on my .com...FastSites.com

I can do this and will do this because I would have been trading as Fast Sites for several years.

Gavin, I'm really sorry to be the one telling you this, but Versign (NetSol) are the ones screwing up the most publically. They allow stealing of domain names by fax, refuse to change personal information even when given all the appropriate documentation, but if you send a false fax with the bad information... no problem.

Yes they are such a large company their communication system sucks.

I would never host a site with them. They have lousy support.

But having said that they do have a great new account interface, which is very user friendly.

I guess it is better the devil you know than the devil you don't.

I wonder about that, actually. Everything is in such flux, who CAN you trust?

So far, I've only heard solid things and experienced solid things from joker.com and godaddy.com.

It's scary all around, though. A domain name is the main point of contact online! Email depends on it, traffic depends on it, advertising and ecommerce depend on it!

I wouldn't spit on netsol if they were on fire. It took me a month and a half just to get nameservers changed on one of my sites. I have moved all my stuff to 000domains.

gavin you said their interface was user friendly. I would give up user friendly for security and customer service any day. just my 2 pennies. netsol left a very bad taste in my mouth and i rate them right up there with Ultimate Search, Inc.

Verisign is being sued for "domain slamming"

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/25264.html

With less integrity in the market and additional tlds being released branding is becoming less a function of URL... Just ask the Pets.com sock puppet how much a cool url is worth, they were one of the first to crash and burn. What's important is community, service and brand loyalty, which isn't tied to your URL.

If there is anyregulation it would be here:
http://www.internic.net/regist.html
http://www.icann.org/
http://www.wipo.org/

http://www.godaddy.com/ <--- $8.95/yr name registrations
http://www.gandi.net/ <--- Registrar in France, I've heard they're good.

Andi

"With less integrity in the market and additional tlds being released branding is becoming less a function of URL... Just ask the Pets.com sock puppet how much a cool url is worth, they were one of the first to crash and burn. What's important is community, service and brand loyalty, which isn't tied to your URL."

This may be somewhat true, but when we work for years to establish presence in search engines, and have dozens of sites linked to us (in my case, over one thousand), and are included in other kinds of directories, then all that is lost if the domain is taken. For many online businesses, it would be the kiss of death.

I hope that someone with deep pockets can sue the living p*ss out of one of these registrars, to put the fear of God in all the rest.

Community, service and brand loyalty ARE tied to your url. Specifically, that's how people find you.

Ever had to change your name? How about get your ID replaced after having a wallet stolen?

Now think about a business operating under a name, using that name for a domain name as well. The domain name becomes the way that people understand the business. For some people, the domain name IS their identity (ebay, amazon).

Let's talk about email. Email is run on domain names. If the domain name goes off somewhere, all the email goes bye-bye with it. Which means that other people can steal your email. Oh! Yes.

I steal your domain name, I steal your customers, I steal your suppliers, I steal it all.

Do not underestimate the importance of a domain name.

Yes I know I know! We spent more than 2 years trying to get BahamaRealEstate.com changed over to our name. It was in the name of an old hosting company. Eventually after many phone calls, faxes and emails we were able to gain control.

The lesson we learnt was to keep control personally of all domain info and store it in a fireproof safe as well just in case!

I can bet most domain companies suck at support.

Even a lot of hosting companies suck at support too.

Best to email them first to see how long they take to get back to you if at all.

At Fast Sites we believe that good support starts at the general sales enquiry stage.

I never meant to imply that there was no value to an established URL with established traffic. It is after all the closest thing you can get to LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION on the web. But the value is diminishing because of the abuses, and for new businesses the URL is of a lot less importance than those other things, service, etc... But did I succeed in getting the discussion heated up a little.

Most new traffic is generated by Google, which powers Yahoo's search function as well as others, I've read that 80% of all searches are now being done by Google. One of the reasons they are so popular is that they DO update quickly. My site has been Google-botted several times in it's short life. Google will respond to new URL's. and does update by request.

http://www.google.com/about.html

Please don't be mad at me if you already know this, I'm just trying to be helpful.

Andi

no one's mad.

It's true that Google is a godsend, but that doesn't take into account the physical collatoral (business cards, stationary, boxes, invoices, print ads) for many sites, the marketing and branding that goes with a domain name. It's not just a matter of location, it's a matter of identity.

Which is why issues of trademark and domain names are currently heating up US courtrooms.

Discussion is always good, so is debate, as long as we're debating the issues, and not each other, if you know what I mean?

Quote: Which is why issues of trademark and domain names are currently heating up US courtrooms.

Yes, and it can only get much worse before it gets better because of all the new tld's (.biz, .us, .tv, etc.) that people are snapping up and trying to sell back to the owners of the trademarks. Maybe it's a good time to develop a strategy for dealing with a compromised URL before it happens.

I do think one solution may lie in the better algorithms used by Google and their determination to stay a step ahead of those who would scam them. They actually do frequent the discussion boards and chat rooms where the search engine scamming is planned. It may pay to keep track of all the sites who link to you so you can notify them quickly. This also affects the PageRank which is perhaps more important in getting you listed on the first page of the search results.

Just a few thoughts, randomly hatched.

Andi

There is a proposal in front of ICANN to grant a formal grace period to domain expirations, as well as a formal drop period for expired domains. Currently there are no rules for either of these items, so registrars are free to make it up as they go along.

The loss of a domain the way this one was lost falls into an area of customer service and consumer fraud however.

You received a notice that your domain was successfully renewed, then you lost your domain because someone else registered it. If your domain was established and really worth something other than your $20 fee, I would contact a lawyer familiar with Internet law and file a suit for damages. You have proof that you renewed the domain successfully. You don't own the domain any longer. Seems pretty straight forward to me.

-t

This has been a very informative thread, and I've learned a lot - thanks to all.

My sincerist wish is that something like my experience happen to one of the big players - one with deep pockets - who then goes to court to settle the issue once and for all. I then hope that a precedence is set, that starts the ball rolling towards hard + fast standards that everyone can point to as being the ground rules. Doesn't seem to be too much to ask.

Then after that gets fixed, let's do something about the onslaught on spam email that is turning people off on a daily basis........ if only!

Here's an interesting new article/review in Salon on the domain name mess:
http://salon.com/tech/books/2002/06/14/root/index.html

And more from CNN:
http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/internet/06/16/internet.crossroads.ap/index.html

Very interesting. Our experiences here seem to be just one tip of a rather large iceberg. Suzanne will find one of the followup articles particularly appropriate:

http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/industry/06/07/verisign.lawsuit.reut/index.html?related

You know, I knew that Verisign was doing this switch trick, but I didn't realize they were using false renewal dates. My god.

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20020616&mode=classic