Domain investor says company is taking back single letter .ag domain after seven years.
Yesterday I wrote about a problem with the .CD (Democratic Republic of Congo) registry. Now comes a warning about .AG (Antigua and Barbuda).
The domain investor that goes by the name kriss05 on NamePros explains that the .ag registry is taking back a single letter .ag domain name he registered in 2010, b.ag.
He tried to renew the domain name but it didn’t work. He subsequently reached out to his registrar and then the .ag registry to figure out what was happening. After he says he opened 45 tickets with the registry, the registry finally reached out to the registrar with an explanation. Here is the response:
“The problem stems from two violations of our policies, which have been in existence for much more than 10 years. Unfortunately, there was an error that caused some of these names to be made available technically, but the registration was still invalid. We caught it too late to delete it in the Add Grace period of 5 days after registration, and so we decided then to allow persons to go ahead and develop legitimate websites for their personal businesses. Even so, we monitored these closely to ensure that the names were not sold or were registered simply for speculation and not in good faith.
http://www.nic.ag/reserved-names-policy.htm
Now, we see that this domain name, which you do not “own”, has NOT been developed for a legitimate business, and is instead listed on SEDO as for sale. We cannot continue to allow these violations to continue, and so we will not allowed further renewals of this and other domains like this that continue to violate of stated policies and rules. The domain name will be allowed to expire its current term and will no longer be allowed to be re-registered and will return to the pool of names that are blocked and/or restricted by the Registry.”
Wow. So the registry previously noticed the domain was registered even though it was supposed to be reserved. Apparently, it noticed this and did nothing about it until 7 years later?
The registrant has some more thoughts here.
Invest in .ag domains at your own risk.
First new Gs now CCs. Outside of .com and lesser degree .org and .net there is risk being a buy and hold, long term domain investor.
I wonder if there is any chance of the Registrant getting Jurisdiction and suing the Registry for breach of contract or similar ?
I see no difference between this horror story and any of the new extensions. I predict that the same thing will soon happen there as they all start to realize that they wildly underestimated their enrollment predictions, their renewal rates and their profit margins. For this reason, I am almost entirely in .com.
I’m the registrant for b.ag. As I already wrote in Namepros thread, Nic.ag is one of the most obscure registries I ever seen. Not only they are taking back the domain after collecting my payments during seven years, they also gave silly excuse for their actions. Nic.ag wrote to the registrar that listing b.ag for sale at Sedo violates their policies, whereas Nic.ag’s own policy clearly says: “Domains may be re-sold”.
So now Nic.ag, in contradiction to their own policy, can seize any .ag domain which is listed for sale, at their own discretion. .AG domains became garbage for investors, not worth a regfee.
.LC domain investors, beware as well! According to IANA.org, same people who own and run Nic.ag registry (Patrick Lay) also manage .LC extension. One can imagine how safe .LC domains are. Amazing thing is most of interest to .LC domains comes from domainers, so now Nic.ag shot themselves in the foot by starting seizing .AG domains from investors.
B.ag is not the only domain they seized so far, they recently suspended E.ag and I.ag, the latter being registered in 2004, 13 years ago!
At the same time, Nic.ag STILL allows registering and reselling reserved/restricted .ag domains, some of them were registered and resold very recently this year. Need some cash badly, Nic.ag?
Shame on you Nic.ag and Patrick Lay!
AG has to be Antigua and Barbuda not to be so since AG can be many other phrases of two keywords in English, Spanish etc. and CD is the same.
Imagine if “a, ” or “b, ” had been sold to an enduser who paid top dollar for the domain, all of sudden have it stolen from them.
As domainers, we know and expect the registrars and registries to find a way to confiscate our domains. But, an enduser had no idea they could lose the domain.
If a registrar or registry stole something from Icann, Icann would not tolerate it.
Maybe, Icann should think about endusers and make the registry policy more consumer friendly.
According to Namebio, some one character .ag domains were sold for up to mid five figures, these domains are at risk now. Nic.ag can seize them anytime without any notice to the registrant.
Check the updates in my Namepros thread. Nic.ag should be getting out of the management of .AG TLD. Such an obscure and shady company! .AG TLD is simply garbage now.