Are all catch services just a front?

[WalkinDude]

Read online that virtually every domain catch service is a fraud. Best domains are cherry picked and kept by those running these services and crumbs left to the rest of us.

And without naming names, those who run these services seem to by sheer coincidence have a quantity of single word high exact domains under their control. Did they just pay a tenner each for them over the years, is that the story?

So my question would be has anyone ever caught a £x,xxx or £xx,xxx value domain via these services? Especially within say the last 5 years.

 

[websaway]

Read online that virtually every domain catch service is a fraud. Best domains are cherry picked and kept by those running these services and crumbs left to the rest of us.

And without naming names, those who run these services seem to by sheer coincidence have a quantity of single word high exact domains under their control. Did they just pay a tenner each for them over the years, is that the story?

So my question would be has anyone ever caught a £x,xxx or £xx,xxx value domain via these services? Especially within say the last 5 years.

You are investigating "conflict of interest"

 

[Paullas]

Read online that virtually every domain catch service is a fraud. Best domains are cherry picked and kept by those running these services and crumbs left to the rest of us.

can you sow me where you read this please.

 

[grantw]

Read online that virtually every domain catch service is a fraud. Best domains are cherry picked and kept by those running these services and crumbs left to the rest of us.

Some public catchers (not many) may book domains for themselves on their own system meaning they can't be booked by anyone else but if you book a domain with them it's booked. Any public catcher that starts messing around with domains booked by others would be out of business almost instantly.

As for the majority of them holding decent domains - virtually all public catchers started off catching domains for themselves before launching public systems so the domains will more than likely be from that period.

The reason public services don't catch that many premium domains is because there's too much competition from private catchers just going for one domain at a time.

Grant

 

[WalkinDude]

The domain industry is full of competing interests and shady companies. It is often compared to the wild west, and rightfully so.

In our industry, it's normal for a company, such as a parking company, or registrar, or even registry, to compete with its customers and build its own domain portfolio using data collected from customer queries. Some of these companies take measures to hide their actions, while others are open and proud to be in the same business as their customers.

In the last ten years, we have found that nearly every single service provider in the domain industry (that we are aware of), from drop catchers to parking companies to drop-list providers to registrars, to portfolio management and monetization services is in the same business as their customers, except EstiBot (if you know of more, let us know and we'll gladly add them to the list!).

And there's plenty of others saying the same thing.

 

[WalkinDude]

Grant I agree with what your saying, but how many domaineers pass on passwords to others for safekeeping. So if you drop dead your domains are going to expire at some point. On top of that people simply forget or get into financial difficulties, so there should be especially here some instances of people grabbing hold of an absolute top end domain at registration price from a catch service.

As for 'if your domain is booked' err no, be piece of pie to book your domain then register it myself under some made up ownership details and send you an email saying sorry and other commiserations that you were unlucky and didn't win.

Has anyone ever caught a single word top end generic they were after?

 

[Ashton]

edit: removed.

 

[Blossom]

In the last ten years, we have found that nearly every single service provider in the domain industry (that we are aware of), from drop catchers to parking companies to drop-list providers to registrars, to portfolio management and monetization services is in the same business as their customers, except EstiBot (if you know of more, let us know and we'll gladly add them to the list!).

You want to be careful you don't get sued making claims like that. There are plenty of powerful people with a lot of weight to throw around.

A lot of people in the industry just see what they do as a job. You'd be surprised how few actually care about domains in and of themselves.

 

[Bailey]

I'm not sure what your 'beef' is here WalkinDude. If somebody writes a Script to capture domains and Nominet in their wisdom allow multiple polling of their servers for availability - then the end-game is what it is.

If your saying the whole system needs overhauling - then I'm in agreement as i've made clear many times. (I think the current system is the killer for the UK space) But, you can't blame people/individuals for using their ability to 'Garner' the system if it's all above board

 

[monaghan]

I guess it is down to how people choose to run their business. All my personal catches go in the queue just like any other and if a customer beats me to a booking so be it. The only thing a customer can't do is to book a LLL.co.uk, everything else is entirely first come first served.

I would be interested to read the article you refer to though, perhaps you can share the link for us?

 

[Paullas]

i am still interested on where you read it online as you stated in your first post?

 

[boxerdog]

Its the ones that don't allow you to book a lll that get me thinking "why"

 

[WalkinDude]

Blossom the words your referring to are not mine but a copy and paste off the net if you read it in full you'll see that. So won't be me getting sued, not that'd i'd care.

Bailey,

Call me naive but i thought you got a service when paying a registration fee. What appears to be going on here is the equivalent of your estate agent valueing your house with the intention of buying it himself or there abouts.

In all other walks of life this thing called 'disclosure' appears to apply when advertising services.

 

[grantw]

Grant I agree with what your saying, but how many domaineers pass on passwords to others for safekeeping. So if you drop dead your domains are going to expire at some point. On top of that people simply forget or get into financial difficulties, so there should be especially here some instances of people grabbing hold of an absolute top end domain at registration price from a catch service.

Drop dead / financial difficulties or whatever - the domains will still be on the daily droplists and will be targetted by private catchers which drastically reduces the chances of public catchers getting them.

As for 'if your domain is booked' err no, be piece of pie to book your domain then register it myself under some made up ownership details and send you an email saying sorry and other commiserations that you were unlucky and didn't win.

What you're suggesting here is that public catchers would risk their businesses to rob booked domains from people, rather than spend 30 minutes a day looking through droplists and booking the domains they want on their own systems. It's highly unlikely!!

It's also not as simple as registering it in someone elses name, they would need fake TAGs or the use of other peoples TAGs to cover it up - again, not something I can see anyone doing to avoid looking through a droplist!!

Grant

 

[Bailey]

In all other walks of life this thing called 'disclosure' appears to apply when advertising services.

indeed. But that rule isn't in operation in the UK name space - I've never used a domain capture service because I don't see the point. As you say your chances of being successful are close to Nil for the type of domains you mention.

Seems to me you should be directing your thoughts at Nominet

 

[Paullas]

Blossom the words your referring to are not mine but a copy and paste off the net if you read it in full you'll see that.

where can we read this?

 

[Blossom]

Blossom the words your referring to are not mine but a copy and paste off the net if you read it in full you'll see that. So won't be me getting sued, not that'd i'd care.

You need to make it clearer when you're quoting people, and state where it's from.

where can we read this?

Looks about Warrior Forum standard to me.

But wait...there's more!

 

[grantw]

Some of it seems to have come from this bit of Estibot self promotion:

estibot.com/news.php

Grant

 

[monaghan]

Its the ones that don't allow you to book a lll that get me thinking "why"

I want them all for myself

 

[WalkinDude]

Grant,

If your running a drop service and every 6 months the odd £xx,xxx gem appears you are highly motivated to go through whatever hassles are necessary to grab it for yourself as opposed to letting one of your 'customers' have it for reg costs. You make it sound difficult, I don't think it is, especially if you're running multiple but independent enterprises online.

The issue is deeper as there's also the assertion every domaineer who isn't a registrant is basically part of a massive data pool for registrar domaineers who can in the blink of an eye pool data for the benefit of their own portfolios. Just wanna know if this is what's going on, well lets say i'm pretty sure have always suspected this is exactly what's going on. Just first time i've ever thought about doing anything about it is all, to protect my own interests.

Bailey

No i'm not after any campaigns just seek to understand the business i'm in a bit better that's all. Does ask on this thread if anyone has ever caught a high value domain, that's what i'm interested in. Has it ever actually happened. The answer to that question answers my question quite adequately.