This guy says that .blog changed the rules on him. Sound familiar?
Chris Schidle is upset with Automattic right now because he couldn’t get Chris.blog. And I don’t blame him.
Chris isn’t an idiot. He’s also an entrepreneur. When he paid $250 to apply for the domain name Chris.blog in August, he read the description of what he was getting into and even verified details with Automattic’s support team.
The way it looked to him, if he was the only applicant then he’d get the domain name. If there was more than one applicant then it would go to auction.
Chris wasn’t placing a landrush order through a registrar. Landrush didn’t open until much later. He placed the order through WordPress’ site.
When it came time to allocate domain names, Chris didn’t get Chris.blog and it didn’t go to auction. It seems that Automattic hadn’t gotten around to deciding which domain names would carry annual premiums or be reserved when Chris placed his order, and Chris.blog ended up being reserved. [Update: .blog has posted an explanation of what happened, which is in line with what I said here. It blames the fact that registrars start taking pre-orders for domains before the premium lists are created. That’s true, but in this case the customer placed the order through Automattic’s official site. So even Automattic was accepting pre-orders before it created its list.]
Chris’ story is similar to other ones we’ve heard many times over the past couple of years. It’s usually worse: a registry takes back a domain name after it was already registered.
“Oops, we didn’t mean to sell that domain at that price.”
(The irony is that some registries that have taken back domains should have considered themselves lucky to have sold the domain at any price.)
I know that not every registry is guilty of this. Some have even admitted their mistakes and let registrants keep the domains they meant to reserve.
But each of these cases makes people throw up their arms and say, “I’ll just stick with .com. I know what I’m getting and what the rules are.”
By the way, .Blog opens in general availability next week.
My story is exactly the same but with photo.blog
No auction, nothing. Just an email saying “Sorry, your domain was not registered. Here’s your refund.”
By the way, in case of auction (which was very likely), my highest bid was gonna be around $8k.
I think Automattic has MySpace syndrome.
Take backs after you have paid for it are incredibly annoying as is poor management.
I bought a new gtld on SEDO and am still waiting for the transfer because the registry doesn’t have a policy in place for premium names being transferred to registrars that offer their extension on names not reserved/premium.
Supposedly the registrar and registry will have a solution soon, but I’m not holding my breath.
“(The irony is that some registries that have taken back domains should have considered themselves lucky to have sold the domain at any price.)”
So true. The registries are paving the way their own demise.
Perhaps they should think about their customers and less about their shareholders.
Question:
Is there a resource to find a list of the already taken domains in a particular extension ??
For Example:
If I wanted to find 100+ domains in the .blog
extension that are ALREADY registered – how would I go about finding that sort of info in bulk ??
~Patricia Kaehler — Ohio USA — DomainBELL
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.
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Yes, there is: the zone file. https://czds.icann.org . Note though the zone file doesn’t included reserved names, or even registered names with Hold status or without DNS servers, but you know for sure that those names in the zone file are already taken.
They paid $19M for this extension, they need every premium dollar they can get, they are going to FAIL after the way they treated their non domainer type clients.
I had the same problem with a .SURF domain…
ICANN has allowed registrars and registries to become squatters rather than data base managers.
Without a Uniform renewal pricing policy, it’s become a Pay a premium to access system. Registrars and registries carving up the digital space to work under their own rules. A blatant disregard for the original intent and a conflict of interest of access to a creative commons platform.
The end result, end users left with little choice AGAIN.
I don’t have similar problems. I simply ignore all new TLDs. Simple and it works
Seems like even if how early you book the new ones, you are not getting them. Registrars, you are kings doomed to abdicate the thrones! Mass buying counts in the long run.
Chris’ story is similar to other ones we’ve heard many times over the past couple of years. It’s usually worse: a registry takes back a domain name after it was already registered.
.fishing did this and many are still available at their premium prices
You are right, they probably wish they had let them go through in hindsight