The domain name I want expired several months ago according to NetSol's whois. So I paid SnapNames some money to snap it up when it is released.

Now I find that the domain name is up for auction on one of the domain name auction sites. The now-expired registrant and the current auctioner appear to be the same person.

I called NetSol, and the first response they gave was that the auctioning registrar put a hold on it. Later they said I would have a chance at it when it was released. ??

I want it released now, of course. I figure the former domain owner will simply re-register the name after he gets a winning bid, then transfer it. The auction site's rules state that auctioned domains registration fees must be current. (not expired)

Looking for suggestions, I have two questions for y'all.

1. Would it be ethical for NetSol/SnapNames (business partners?) to take my money for snapping that domain, while another organization has a 'hold' on it while it is auctioned? The phone rep initially said this happened, but didn't sound all that sure about it.

2. Does an expired domain (former) owner have the privilege of "first crack" at that domain, over four months after expiration?


I know the obvious suggestion will be to bid on the domain. I want to avoid that, but I may have to do it.

Verisign/Netsol can't see the forest for the trees. Do they really think its worth playing these games? Can't they see the class action law suits coming as well as the government investigation? Maybe even ICANN will get involved and criticize Verisign, although I doubt it. I think ICANN is in bed with all these registrars.

Originally posted by CD Burnt
[B][clip]1. Would it be ethical for NetSol/SnapNames (business partners?) to take my money for snapping that domain, while another organization has a 'hold' on it while it is auctioned? The phone rep initially said this happened, but didn't sound all that sure about it.

No. But that's an ethical position, not a legal position, and that requires high morals.

2. Does an expired domain (former) owner have the privilege of "first crack" at that domain, over four months after expiration?

There are no rules here. It's literally up to the Registrar at this time to make the judgement. All you can do is petition ICANN (icann.org) to formally define rules for expiring domains so that these games stop being played.

-t

It doesn't matter how long a domain is expired for, and until it drops out of their database, the current owner (of the expired domain) can wait months before it finally drops and pay for another year at the very last minute. If you ask me, they should drop the day they expire, or within a week. If someone doesn't keep up or pay it, that's their problem. There's a domain I really wanted, a very good name I think (studio1.com) and it expired on Nov of 2001. It was non responsive soon after. Months went by. I couldn't contact anyone on the domain's contact information. The admin contact was AT the domain that was expired to boot. I contacted the technical contact, whom was the host that it's zone was on their name servers. They said they can't legally do anything. Someone already had back-ordered it through SnapNames too. NetworkSolutions says that it's first come, first serve. It's a scam and a lie.

Networksolutions is involved with many domain auction sites, as well as SnapNames. If SnapNames allows people to pre-order a domain that's going to eventually expire, and if networksolutions (for example, they are involved with other registrars) only allows that service (SnapNames) to interface with their system to automatically check and grab domains every second (can any of us interface like that? No!), then their first come, first serve policy, is a lie.

Networksolutions doesn't want people to let domains drop, so they'll expire them, but they won't drop it from their database for anywhere from 2 or 3 months to over a year. They would rather wait and sit on it until someone renews it or backorders it. I contacted the owner (after a lot of calls and emails) and talked to a staff member of their new company. They had no desire or intention to renew it, obviously. They didn't care. I asked them if they can let me renew it and then transfer it to me. They said they would for $250. I responded back saying that wasn't too bad of a price, but since they had no intention to renew it, why would I pay $250? I said I'd pay for the renewal and give them $50 for their trouble. They never responded back, and after talking to the old host again recently, they asked him for me what he was going to do. He said that (right then, as a matter of fact) they decided they'll just renew it and decide what to do later.

They had no interest or concern, but they see it's worth money and start thinking. It seems it's either a domain that people will never allow to expire (fine), or they do and get it before it drops, or they have people ask them and decide "Hmm, people want this, it's worth money, let's renew it and sell it", or it's just some jerk that registered it that will never put up a site and is just going to hold onto it until they can sell it... something they never own anyway. It's just a name, but this is highly annoying. People getting greedy or just hoarding domains to sell. I refuse to pay someone for something they just abandoned and it's annoying that these people just decided to renew it only after they saw people were interested... and registrar's then claiming no one can put a hold on a domain and it's first come, first serve, yet only allowing one affiliated service to be allowed an interface and update frequency to interact with them to do just that. This all seems strange and highly suspicious to me. Do you think they'd let any one of us use a script to automate full registrations the moment a domain is free from their Database's clutches? Not only that, but at the 10 times a second frequency of those requests? No way, they'd block your IP from their systems/network and report you for flooding or something. Do you think they'd allow some service (SnapNames.com) to just be able to do this for free? Obviously they get money from it, by allowing a 3rd party company (hmm) this access, to they personally aren't allowing people to back-order domains, yet get paid for that affiliation anyway. These people are scum in my opinion. After all, it's NOT theirs (the domains don't belong to them!) to say what can be done, but they've managed to anyway and find a way to take control anyway. They are not supposed to be able to do this. I don't think the government cares at all, which is shown by everything else Netsol alone has been getting away with.

In all fairness it does cost people time, money, and risk, to pay their expired domain and then transfer it to you. $250 ain't bad. If I wanted a domain that bad I'd pay it. Look at the $200 as compensation for their troubles.

Originally posted by Skeptical
In all fairness it does cost people time, money, and risk, to pay their expired domain and then transfer it to you. $250 ain't bad. If I wanted a domain that bad I'd pay it. Look at the $200 as compensation for their troubles.

Don't misunderstand me, I'm not trying to say that what I think it's worth for them to o it for me, should be all there is to it. However, you'd think my paying to renew the domain for them, and then give them $50 for the trouble of actually filling out a few fields on a form and pressing "process" would be worth it. The fact that they were going to allow it to drop and suddenly they want more money than they would otherwise make in 10 minutes of effort (if that long -- it's surely likely be just replying to a template email I have sent to them), so while they might make $250 every 2 minutes in their life, I think it's a bit steep to justify it's compensation for their troubles.

Again, I'm not saying I should be the one that makes the decision on what their time is worth, but this doesn't seem to be about the value of time, which should be obvious. Of course, I don't need to explain or justify that to you either. The point being, they didn't want it, they would make no money and has no interest to try to, and it's highly unlikely that they make that much to require anywhere near $250 for a couple of minutes of their time, and as soon as someone asks them about it, they rush to renew it and ask $250 for it. As I said previously, it's not a bad price, it's just that seems a bit unreasonable for something they didn't want until they saw someone else did, and that sucks.

It would be different if they intended to sell it, but to save it right before it drops after may months, just to charge so much, insults me.. but it's not unexpected -- just something I'm not willing to pay. It's just a friggin' domain anyway, and it would be ridiculous to me, to buy it for that price given the circumstances. You can be certain they'll be auctioning it off or selling it for a lot more now, or just hoard it. Yeah, I know it's just a rant, but I just think it sucks that people take such an approach and under the circumstances to assume that it's all reasonable and fair... perhaps to you, which is fine. Cheers.

Well I guess that's just human nature at its best: greed.

Yeah, I suppose that's true. Well, if anyone wants that domain for studio1.com for $250, contact them when it's renewed. I don't blame them for getting money where they can, I'd sell a domain if I could, before I let it expire. I just didn't like that them seeing someone wanting it seemed to change the circumstances. Well, there's always othr equally good names out there, I'll tihnk of something ad just register it for $7. :-)

tim, you are not going to like what i have to say,
but i think you are foolish not to cough up the 250 dollars.

that appears to be both a very fair and good price. Dealing with network solutions from reading previous posts is never a 10 minute job.

To start with, someone is willing to pay US$69, or possibly US$49 for a snapback on the name, means it is probably worth a lot more.

If they reregister the domain name and then transfer it to you, the domain name will have the creation date intact. That domain name was registered back in 1995. Most people check the whois on a domain name before dealing with a business. DO you have any idea whatsover of the value of a domain name registered in 1995? Obviously not!

And if they had registered it for all those years, when it was expensive to do so, do you think it is unfair and greedy to at least try and recoup their registration costs? I personally dont think so.

I think you should reconsider! What is the domain name worth to you? I dont think you should get hung up on the fact that they were prepared to just let it expire.

You're entitled to your opinions, it's okay that you don't agree. As I said, it's not a bad price for that domain, but it's just a domain. It's not sex.com or chat.com or something, so I'm not too worried about passing it up. The fact that it was registered in 1995 means nothing, other than someone thought of the name back in 1995 ahd grabbed it. I got domains back then myself and they were more expensive, but not hat expensive. If you're interested in it, grab it. Contact them and mybe they'll still only want $250 for it (which I don't think included the renewal free). I'd like to have it, but it's not worth that much. It would just go well with a project I'm doing involving music and studio work. However, I already grabbed some domains for that that I like as much, but I tried to get this one as well. I have better things to spend that much on, even if it's not that much. :-) I guess it was just the principal of the thing, I never said it wasn't worth what they were asking. I won't deny, however, that it's one of the better one's I've seen lately that was actually allowed to expire and literally drop, until I mentioned it to them. I realize what you mean though, have it it if you think it's worth it to you.

I agree that $250 is a very GOOD price for that domain. You probably can't get it now for that price. And they paid way MORE than that over the years just to keep it registered.

Ya know there's another side to the 'greed' coin.......like you don't want to PAY a fair price....That's just being greedy in different way......JMHO of course...........:popcorn:.............z

Most companies will renew a domain that they were going to let drop when someone shows an interest because they do not know you, nor do they know what your intentions are and are therefore concerned that you might put up a site that does not adhere to their standards and / or with whom they'd rather have no association* with due to a conflict of interest, etcettera, all of which could reflect badly on their business.

* they are in a way associating themselves with you indirectly.

whine whine whine whine whine.

They should NEVER have offered you the domain for $250. Only the current registrant should ever be allowed to bring his or her own domain out the the registrar hold period. Otherwise, that period serves no purpose. As for the price, that is normal to bring a domain out of registrar-hold.

Domains are often up for auction, and from the name you have stated, I could EASILY see it going for over $1000 on the drop catching services. SnapNames does NOT have a monopoly on this, it is a fair system that every company can design their own algorithms to grab these expired domain names. They start as cheap as $8.75 and have gone past $100,000 (culinary.com).

You whine because your domain isnt 'top tier' but who is to make that distinction? What differentiates sex.com and studio1.com? They are both domain names, how is value measured? Your arguments are just whining because things did not turn out your way.

Had you backordered it on snapnames, would you be complaining here today?

Ummm, this thread is about 9 months old.

Oooops, make that 21 months old.

*note: I would have edited my previous post, but the edit button only took me to a blank page. *

wow, just noticed that.... wonder why zardiw responded to it then? odd.

Heh, fancy responding to a 21month old thread. ;)

What happens is when you do a search, you get old threads. I didn't check the date before I responded.......but what the hey, maybe it will provide info for someone.............Just call me the resurrector......:popcorn:........z