.EU .conned and other shady registrar practices
Without a doubt, I believe that the lack of government regulation online has been very important to its massive growth and the ease of publishing information. Unfortunately, there are some downsides. Chris over at WebSitePublisher.net made a post about some of the shenanigans that have occured over the .EU domain.
Chris also mentions how sometimes you look for unregistered domains and then they suddenly are mysteriously registered. I have had this happen to me as well, but I suspect that in some cases its just the whois database messing or really bad timing.
For example, a few months ago I recieved an issue of Business 2.0 with a cover article on space tourism. Billionaire Richard Branson is involved with Virgin Galactic and a space port is being built in New Mexico. Another company which put the first tourist in space for $30 million, Space Adventures, recently announced they were building a spaceport in the middle east. All the indicators say that this industry is going to explode over the next decade.
Within a matter of minutes of paging through that issue of Business 2.0 I was scouring the web for good space tourism domains. I located SpaceVacations.com for a mere $1,500 on BuyDomains.com. This was an unbelievable bargain! This was in the early afternoon; I decided I would take a look at my finances and buy it the next day. Three hours later I checked the domain and it was gone. I contacted the buyer but never recieved a reponse (feel free to give it a try if you’d like.)
Perhaps some registrars are snapping up good domain names. If you have a big list you have compiled over the past month and half are taken when you try to register them, don’t blame the registrar. Bottom line, if you really want a domain, buy it immediately.
Something needs to be done about this - If domain registrars are trusted with providing the service of domain registration to the public - then they shouldn’t be allowed to abuse that responsibility.
Comment by agua — April 13, 2006 @ 12:25 am
This is exactly why I don’t search for open domain names from registrar sites. I’ve have a couple instances of searching for names that were decent and a niche that I’d guess not a lot of people mess with and BAM! couple days later those domains were bought up. Hhhmmmm.
Comment by Deron — April 13, 2006 @ 1:13 pm
I think all of us have learned this lesson the hard way.
Comment by Junanagoh — April 27, 2006 @ 2:02 pm
For sure. There are a lot of sleazy characters in this business, and a lot of these registrars are right on the top of the heap. I wouldn’t trust most of them for a nano-second. Of course, the true blame lies with Icaan who shoud strip them promptly of their license.
Don’t worry though, someday soon these clows are going to outsmart themselves. Fraud is fraud, and takes many forms. Someone is going to wind up getting sued over some of these practices and then it won be quite so funny. They are already getting sued over trademark and the “typo” carap, and that is only the beginning. Good for them.
Comment by Mark — July 22, 2006 @ 8:59 am