OnlineDomain.com Domain Name News & Opinions
A reader named James complained that the .porn and .adult registry deleted 2 domains after he had successfully registered them for about 2 days.
James pre-ordered the domain names and got them in General Availability at 101domain.com last week. After having the domains for almost 2 days he got a notice that the domains had been deleted. He then got an email from 101domain.com saying that these domains should have been reserved by the registry and not available for registration and they refunded his money. ICM registry did not contacted him before the deletions.
I contacted Stuart Lawley, Chairman and President of ICM Registry, and told him that the registrant of the 2 domains complained about his company deleting his 2 domains and this is the official response I got:
Real simple
Those names were made available by mistake , an error on my own part in fact . We spotted the error and cancelled the registration as provided in the registration agreement.
Stuart Lawley
I then wrote back but did not get a reply until now:
It is not that simple.
Just because your registration agreement says you (can) do whatever you want doesn’t make it right.
Why should the registrant pay for your mistake?
.Club had a similar issue and they chose to let the registrant keep the domain.
In my opinion this is how you built trust in the extension and the registry.
Otherwise it will be bad publicity that is not worth it…
Anyway, it is your decision.
People will judge.
Thanks
Konstantinos
(The domain I am talking about is Credit.Club which was made available by accident at the regular price of $15 instead of being sold by the registry as a premium domain for 4 or 5 figures.)
I also have to wonder if the ICM registry spotted the error after I made a post about some of the best .adult domains that were registered. Ads.adult was at the top of my list. Maybe I am wrong but it made me think about it… (And another blogger posted about a few other domains that are now involved in this situation.)
Unfortunately ICANN allows registries to have registration terms that allows them to do whatever they want (delete domains etc.) without any explanation or consequences.
Then James told me that Stuart Lawley offered him a domain name of a value of up to $5,000 from the reserved .porn or .adult list. Although that is a good gesture I don’t think this makes it right.
James will probably not accept this offer as he had plans for the 2 deleted domains. He is not just looking to get any adult domain.
I’m extremely disappointed and disheartened to have ‘my domains’ taken away. I had already envisaged a ‘future’ for them and was getting ready to execute my plan. I think it’s disgraceful how ICM Registry are able to take away any domains they ‘want’, at any time, with no warning.
James also wanted me to make sure it’s clear that “ads” is not on any published reserved lists, such as the ICANN list. But I don’t think that matters as registries are allowed to reserve up to 100 domains for their own use and an unlimited amount for resale. The registries don’t publish these lists anywhere.
James is currently exploring his legal options.
The 2 domains and a few others were part of the ICM business plan and were not meant to be offered for sale to anyone. There are more domains involved in this from other registrants. At least 4. I am checking to see how many I will found.
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That’s why .com is king. Credibility!!!
Exactly the same happened to me. I purchased orgy.porn and yes.porn for them to be swiped. Fumming!
Were these swiped after the domains were registered and your name was on whois?
all this ‘reserved domain’ stuff is BS. main reason for disliking the new gtlds.
.. like M&M
Why would you trust anyone selling porn names?
A sleazy business…
If you lie down with fleas, don’t be surprised if you get fleas.
unfortunately, it seems that buying .porn or .adult domain is worthless as an investment if the registry will take them back at any time. Poor judgement on their end for not letting the buyer keep them. This will cost them lots of future sales.
It seems that some people think that the next sucker is waiting in line. And they might be right…
Stuart Lawley’s response is so flippant. The mistake is on their end.
Falling back on a TOS that basically allows you to do anything is so pathetic.
I don’t care if it is legally valid or not. It is just total BS.
This will damage their credibility far more than the value of these domains.
ICM.sucks & StuartLawley.sucks
Brad
That is what I told them and they ignored me.
Waited for 2 days so I made the post.
what did you expect from the operators of .porn?
😀
Snap.Domains are you seriously looking to get sued lol
Why? Because he doesn’t like candy? 🙂
hummm .. why do u think robbie ?
I think he means due to the similarity with “snapdomains.com”
Or snapnames?
I meant “snapnames.com”
thanks for clarifying
Hey guys i think ICM should have followed .club’s lead who you know we all work with, i will point out however in a similar example that people have used to equate to honoring mistakes the Department of Transportation issued a new rule in May of this year that airlines do NOT have to honor fares posted in error:
“”The Enforcement Office will not enforce the requirement of section 399.88 with regard to mistaken fares occurring on or after the date of this notice so long as the airline or seller of air transportation: (1) demonstrates that the fare was a mistaken fare; and (2) reimburses all consumers who purchased a mistaken fare ticket for any reasonable, actual, and verifiable out-of-pocket expenses that were made in reliance upon the ticket purchase, in addition to refunding the purchase price of the ticket. These expenses include, but are not limited to, non-refundable hotel reservations, destination tour packages or activities, cancellation fees for non-refundable connecting air travel and visa or other international travel fees.
“The airline may ask the consumer requesting out-of-pocket expenses to provide evidence (i.e. receipts or proof of cancellations) of actual costs incurred by the consumer. In essence, the airline or seller of air transportation is required to make the consumer “whole” by restoring the consumer to the position he or she was in prior to the purchase of the mistaken fare.”
http://thepointsguy.com/2015/05/dot-mistake-fares/
SO the .club registry are stand up guys and go the extra mile but they are not required to do so.
I also had two orders for donuts domains today on day 2 (which you know is not cheap) placed today at godaddy and the domains are now back on the reserved list of Donuts
wedding.pictures is one
The thing with domains is that are one of a kind so getting your money back doesn’t bring the same satisfaction as with a ticket.
You can get another ticket but not the same domain name.
So in the end people have the right to choose what registries they do business with.
Donuts usually reserves domains 1 or 2 days before the EAP. And this is not exactly the same issue here.
Also if you look at donuts PR today they give three example of the domain names they made available for registration one of the domain names is Digital.CAMERA, not available in EAP or to be registered its reserved: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/donuts-clears-1369-million-reserved-domain-names-for-registration-300097658.html
Donuts has not given back ECO domains either
These were not not theirs to sell.
That is a PR fail but you can always ask Donuts to buy this domain from them.
Seems little emphasis has been made on the underlying factors that make domain name investments secure from outside forces that may covet them. .com owners with limited resources have stood up to countries and fortune 500 companies and won. New gtlds have so little rights that they can get taken away just because the company that sold it to them notice its value after the fact. New gtlds are WEAK investments. Soon companies will realize that subdomains of their.coms makes better sense for branding and marketing purposes then utilizing the new gtlds. The biggest value newgtlds have now is flipping a nice one word to a fool with money to burn. Funny they kept the one word.gtlds and want us to buy the leftover garbage. Some new gtld operators are like slick used car salesmen selling inferior products to ill informed consumers. Their is no doubt the gtld operators will make back their investments, its the consumers that will get screwed.
You are right. But all registries are not the same. You have to pick the right registries to invest.
Subdomains are great. But that is if you own the great 1 word .com.
IMO Subdomains and new gtlds are very similar. They should both make sense of their keywords.
for example “SuburbanAds.com” “Suburb.SuburbanAds.com”, Its not 1 word but its credible, short, and makes sense..
Now how about the 1 word
suburban.ads, “suburb.suburban.ads”
IMO In the domain space .com is a conservative investment with an unusually high return
and new gtlds should be reserved for risk capital.
and if its not a 1 word then you’d probably be better off playing the lottery
p.s. I understand business is business and don’t blame the registries for hoarding all the 1 words, They are Domainers:)
Seriously though they have a limited inventory of premium names and want to get the best return on them. They can only sell them once.
And your right not all registry owners are alike,
I give props to .club for the way they market and frank schilling for caring enough to personally commenting and responding on the blogs.Time is money and you can imagine what his time is worth.
I hurriedly wrote this so i apologize if my writings a mess.
I forgot to state that My Example above was comparing the subdomains.of a 2 word .com with that of a 1 word new gtld. IMO the 2 word .com’s subdomain is much easier to remember than the 1 word new gtld’s subdomain. As for making sense of the keywords well that’s just common sense:)
Just want to add…..i’m sure many of us have personally experienced or read about Companies spending an enormous amount of money to take away your investment rather than give you a penny. The people involved in the Newgtlds seem to be of the same grain.
The same case here. Uniregistry has deleted 28 of my domain names with no explanation. The domains were deleted from my account with Uniregistry in two goes – on 31/12/2014 (11 domains) and on 06/01/2015 (17 domains). For example, toy.blue was registered on 20/12/2014 and deleted on 06/01/2015, 17 days later. I have screenshots of ICANN’s whois with my names and address for all of these domain names which were deleted from my account with Uniregistry. Till now I believed that registrars respected our property and if the info is shown on ICANN’s whois site, there is nothing to worry about, but I was wrong. I lost my passion to search and buy domains because of the fact that I cannot be sure how long I will be the owner. I believe that a party under a contract cannot simply end it quoting ‘a mistake’. I believe that registrars must respect our property and if they do not, ICANN must protect us as a regulator. I contacted ICANN, but they refused to help me and I complained to the ICANN’s Ombudsman Chris LaHatte, unfortunately with the same result. I tried to complain to Frank Schilling from Michael Ward – Director of Registrar Operations Uniregistry directly, but I received no reply. I am exploring my legal rights as well. The deleted domains are the following:
gemstones.blue
gemstones.pink
gemstones.red
cheese.blue
jeans.blue
lips.red
roses.blue
roses.pink
paint.black
paint.red
paint.blue
toy.blue
toy.pink
toys.blue
toys.red
miami.blue
tea.black
diamonds.black
diamonds.pink
diamonds.red
gemstone.blue
gemstone.pink
gemstone.red
pearls.blue
ruby.pink
sapphires.blue
topaz.blue
It can not believe that Uniregistry is doing such things.
Lets hope Frank got the time to clarify it.
Is Uniregistry the registrar and the registry in this issue ?
Like Mike said Afilias was the registry and Uniregistry the registrar.
Like in the ads.porn case, it was not Uniregistry’s fault, like it is not 101domain.com’s fault.
I see yes .. http://get.pink/
Soon the registries will start taking back domains that are fully developed…
And this is why the new G’s will fail.
They give domainers more and more reason everyd ay to STAY AWAY.
These idiots fail to realize domainers are a NECESSARY part of the ecosystem if they wanted to make the G’s have any shot at success.
I know I am going to not buy any names now. Why spend all the TIME to perform due diligence when if you are successful in your reaseach and hard work, THEY decide you cannot benefit.
F That.
The only way to win is NOT to play.
your right, its true. I am staying away from some registries.
but others are fine: club, donuts, uniregistry .. really fair and fine business companies
Ivan
All those are Afilias owned string, not Uniregistry strings so it was the registry not the registrar that took the domains away.
Michael,
People like you and Konstantinos are an inspiration for a lot of people, but let me ask you a simple question guys. How would you react if it were you?
Thank you in advance.
More Domains Deleted By ICM Registry: buy.porn, host.porn, hosting.porn etc. click here
Ivan
has been me
Bought luxury.villas in EAP through Godaddy taken back by Donuts
.VILLAS Domain Early Pre-Registration
luxury.villas
1 domain(s)
1 Year(s)
$70.17
Early Registration Fee
1
1 Year(s)
$150.00
Subtotal:
$220.17
http://www.thedomains.com/2014/05/28/donuts-pulled-back-reserved-luxury-villas-during-eap-after-orders-were-placed/
Taken back by Donuts still reserved
Just one example
Page has his stories and many other have their stories at least ICM offered something for their fuck up more than most of us got