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Originally Posted by mcdmda  Ok, now to the business side of it. His webhost registered his .org domain with 1and1.com ; he was busy with maintaining the site and all went well for 3 years, until he got very sick again. He got some email problems, and didn't get domain expiry notifications, and the way he found out he lost his domain was when a parked page appeared on his domain name, with the sign " Buy this domain ", with a link to Sedo.com . He was shell-shocked, he made some income from the site, mainly through donations from people. He decided to try and bring his site back up with a different domain name, just for the community and himself, even though many other sites had links to the domain name he lost. Starting over.
Upon research, we found out that:
(a) 1and1.com doesn't offer the 30-day grace period after domain name expiration, unlike most well-known registrars. |
The domain would have been moved to a 'hold' state, where the site / email etc would not work. Did anyone (users like yourself) notice the site being down during this period, was anything done?
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(c) A bid placed on sedo.com was countered with an offer in the $xx,xxx range. There's just no way anyone who visits that site can afford 5% of that.
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Without knowing the domain it is hard to say if that is overpriced. ie. Student.com may have been a site run by students for students, and thus the users could not buy it for such a figure, however to a different group the name may be seen as a bargain at that price.
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(d) So we look up some more, and turns out 1and1.com and Sedo and Domcollect are all under one umbrella organization?
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Yes, all under 'united internet' I think. There was a thread on here about it, Sedo took their time before saying Domcollect was infact them
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The attorney was willing to take the case on pro-bono, because it was community service site, but the ex-owner is dead-set against paying a penny to get the domain back - he says it's like giving in to terrorists. Without his signature, we cannot even pay from our pockets to try this.
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Calling dropcatchers 'terrorists' is a tad harsh.
Bear in mind the .org could have been renewed for several years in advance, labelling and blaming others does not help the cause.
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Wish us luck. There just may be some justice and values left in the world of cruel capitalism.
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I would agree with the 'values' comment, however 'justice' ?
If this does go to the wider media perhaps it will educate people about values of domains and the importance of renewals if they wish to keep them.
I have every sympathy with the position, and if the story checks out personally I would sort something to result in the transfer of the domain back as I am sure many other domainers would.
It is worth being aware that domainers get people trying every trick in the book to gain ownership of domain names, be it dubious legal threats to sob stories about the history of the domain. I had a very 'real' looking one regarding a three letter .co.uk, apparently it was the blokes missus' old art website but they lost everything in the asian tsunami, she needed it back to continue her business etc etc web.archive.org indicated it was infact an old car dealership page and the story was a hoax to get the name for free.
Obviously I am not saying your story is wrong, however it is not unusual for old owners to pop up and want names back, or people who like the domain to make things up. Thus domainers err on the side of caution and not be as understanding as you may expect.
We are not all heartless cybersquatters, many of us actually practise a legitimate business. Much like there are cowboy builders, there are some very good builders out there