Are our domains compromised by words alone ?

[domaingenius]

I have emailed ED and asked him to urgently review the wording of the "enquire about domain "link so that it is not used against us all, as it is being against myself.

I quote from complaint;

(i) In or around March 2006 the Complainant first became aware of a website wwwsss.co.uk . That website (which is still “live”) contains a link using the words “Enquire about this domain”. Clicking on that link leads to a further page headed “Enquire about the domain ssss.co.uk” and containing the words “If you are interested in a possible purchase of this domain or would like to contact the owner please fill the following information and submit your message”

Now this means that all our domains are at risk because of use of unecessary words that may be twisted to say that we were offering to sell when infact we were only offering a point of contact for anyone that wants to contact us to advise about anything related to the domain name. PLEASE can be we quickly reach a consensus on some new unambiguous words that do NOT put us at risk. Im sure that is quite simple and quick to do. This has been broached before and yet nothing happened, and it is in EVERYONES interest, including ND's im sure,

Oh, and this seriously concerns me,quote:

Ms XXXX checked with the company which hosts the Complainant’s website who advised her to report the matter to Nominet. Ms XXX telephoned Nominet who advised her not to buy the Domain Name [and instead issue a complaint]

DG

 

[retired_member6]

Ms XXXX checked with the company which hosts the Complainant’s website who advised her to report the matter to Nominet. Ms XXX telephoned Nominet who advised her not to buy the Domain Name

So is that nominet's policy? which staff member told her that and in what capacity? Also as for selling domains, it's perfectly legal and within the realms of the nominet policy (which still needs more clearing up so there's more clarity).

Why the DRS, what's the reason?

 

[yesterday]

If she loses the DRS I imagine she could sue Nominet for all costs and her time etc etc.

Why do Nominet get themselves into this sort of trouble.

They should let go and concentrate on protecting domains not screwing up the system.

It is too much of a monopoly the fact that Nominet operates all .uk domains.

yesterday

 

[domaingenius]

So is that nominet's policy? which staff member told her that and in what capacity? Also as for selling domains, it's perfectly legal and within the realms of the nominet policy (which still needs more clearing up so there's more clarity).

Why the DRS, what's the reason?

The reason being of course that they want the domain for nothing !. Of course it has not been used in anyway to interfere with their business and would not be so used But lets not let that stop Nominet making money from the DRS and interfere in my business at the same time. I am asking my lawyers to consider the matter ,and from what they have said they will issue proceedings against Nominet for unlawful interference in a contract between myself and a thrid party in exchange for that company then contracting with Nominet to issue a DRS for a fee. It is unlawful to interfere in a contract between 2 parties, a little known fact of case law.

DG

 

[olebean]

DG

I assume your solicitor has suggested you refrain from discussing this openly?


OB

 

[retired_member6]

The reason being of course that they want the domain for nothing !. Of course it has not been used in anyway to interfere with their business and would not be so used But lets not let that stop Nominet making money from the DRS and interfere in my business at the same time. I am asking my lawyers to consider the matter ,and from what they have said they will issue proceedings against Nominet for unlawful interference in a contract between myself and a thrid party in exchange for that company then contracting with Nominet to issue a DRS for a fee. It is unlawful to interfere in a contract between 2 parties, a little known fact of case law.

DG

If they want the domain for nothing then that would be classed as reverse domain hijacking and if nominet have done wrong, and you have the money, then yes fire a warning shot over their bow. It all sounds like nominet have actually advised her "it's free to do a drs, you can probably get a domain cheaper at mediation so it's worth it nine times out of ten, then you can decide, upon complainant's reply whether to pay £750 if mediation fails to get the name."

They should make the complainant pay the £750 up front and if settling at mediation, give half back. Domain owner gets half the fee, as does nominet, but if goes all the way to judgement, domainer gets a third and judge two thirds, why on earth domains get transferred for nothing I don't know. Imagine having a domain for 100 years and then suddenly a company DRS's for it... and gets it.

 

[domaingenius]

DG

I assume your solicitor has suggested you refrain from discussing this openly?


OB

Of course not of the forum in specific terms, but without reference to specifics is no problem. Of much more concern to me at the moment is whether ED is actually going to change the wording of the "enquire about domain" form etc as THAT is what is needed. Yes it is easy not to do anything but this will happen then to others im sure and why compromise our domains for sake of a few words on the ND website ?

DG

 

[tifosi]

It's an issue I raised with Ed a while ago while I was going through my DRS where the complainant was saying I was putting it up for sale.

The best option would be a configurable contact form which would take the settings from the control panel per domain (or folder) for sale option..

This would need an extra option per domain: so 'not for sale', 'for sale', & a new 'enquire' option.

The internal flag would set whether the contact form/select list has the for sale select options (currency) and price input, and instead simply has the contact details input options.

That way the contacter has to explicitly request 'is this for sale'

Not a massive amount of work I suspect as it will be in the db or session vars. ED?

Stephen

 

[domaingenius]

It's an issue I raised with Ed a while ago while I was going through my DRS where the complainant was saying I was putting it up for sale.

The best option would be a configurable contact form which would take the settings from the control panel per domain (or folder) for sale option..

This would need an extra option per domain: so 'not for sale', 'for sale', & a new 'enquire' option.

The internal flag would set whether the contact form/select list has the for sale select options (currency) and price input, and instead simply has the contact details input options.

That way the contacter has to explicitly request 'is this for sale'

Not a massive amount of work I suspect as it will be in the db or session vars. ED?

Stephen

Stephen, ,my thoughts are to avoid the for sale or not for sale, but instead to have simple text saying "Contact Domain Owner Here" and then the form
can be a neutral form with the same functionality (i.e. IP address) but with nothing at all about prices, buying,selling or whatever. Might consider perhaps could text on the form saying "If you have any wish to contact the domain owner please write your message here" or similar.

Ed, please can we have some movement on this ,as otherwise I for one am pulling my domains from parking until it is resolved as dont want to lose them one by one. One person even said that ND explained to them that putting the "enquire...." was an option ,lol.

 

[retired_member6]

Meanwhile just state in your response, the only way for me to have my email contact address on the domain is to have it for sale, this doesn't mean the domais for sale but who's to say I can't have it for sale, you already presume it might be, you wish to convince the judge that it is, but where's the harm if it was for sale but right now it may or may not be for sale, your only interest in that it might be for sale is that you wish to get the domain for free and are trying to argue that if the domain was for sale that then would be wrong and breaking nominet policy but if it was for sale, I can inform all reading that this isn't against the nominet policy, only if I was actively selling it to a rival company that was against the company that might wnat the domain.

Let them unpick that.

 

[domaingenius]

Meanwhile just state in your response, the only way for me to have my email contact address on the domain is to have it for sale, this doesn't mean the domais for sale but who's to say I can't have it for sale, you already presume it might be, you wish to convince the judge that it is, but where's the harm if it was for sale but right now it may or may not be for sale, your only interest in that it might be for sale is that you wish to get the domain for free and are trying to argue that if the domain was for sale that then would be wrong and breaking nominet policy but if it was for sale, I can inform all reading that this isn't against the nominet policy, only if I was actively selling it to a rival company that was against the company that might wnat the domain.

Let them unpick that.

Lee, yes noted thanks. That in fact is the true position as was not offered for sale, and the domain is generic, albeit in latin but this again is where ND could make it cut and dry by changing the text. (lol, am I hinting enough Ed ?)

DG

 

[olebean]

Meanwhile just state in your response, the only way for me to have my email contact address on the domain is to have it for sale, this doesn't mean the domais for sale but who's to say I can't have it for sale, you already presume it might be, you wish to convince the judge that it is, but where's the harm if it was for sale but right now it may or may not be for sale, your only interest in that it might be for sale is that you wish to get the domain for free and are trying to argue that if the domain was for sale that then would be wrong and breaking nominet policy but if it was for sale, I can inform all reading that this isn't against the nominet policy, only if I was actively selling it to a rival company that was against the company that might wnat the domain.

Let them unpick that.

The offer is merely an invitation to treat...

 

[retired_member6]

The offer is merely an invitation to treat...

Yes but those deciding on the judgements appear to be a bit simple at times.

 

[NameDriver]

Hi guys,

Wow this has exploded pretty fast. Sorry I didn't catch it earlier.
This is a really tricky one for us. My points on it:

1. In many cases, people simply park domains as a means to an end - i.e. selling them. I have heard from a very respected member on this forum that he has had more queries and therefore sales through the simple ND contact form than any other method (forwarding enquires to Sedo or his own sales page). The tab in the member area says 'for sale' yes/no. We have discussed the 'enquiry only' link and that is something which could be brought in. However, as you said, DG, this is a generic term which I suppose you are one day looking to sell. Having a generic 'enquire' link would probably greatly reduce the number of sales enquiries. If my mum's looking for a cooking site and she says 'put an offer in here', she'd probably make an offer. If it said 'enquire here', it's a step further away from making a sale and the majority of end users buying domains - the holy grail - for the main part are not particularly domain-savvy, so a little hand-holding is probably necessary.

2. If you look at other companies, they also offer a very basic for sales formula rather than an actual enquiries page. We have always tried to be one step further towards your needs. We have changed the language of the link, as well as the wording of the resulting page to make it as clear as possible that the page is not directly being offered for sale.
We have also offered the option, since the beginning, to forward these enquiries to any page on the internet you desire. For the most part, people are satisified with pages we offer, but if you would like to set up a very basic contact page, I would be more than happy to set it up so that all your domains' sales link point to this page.

3. Um. I think that's mostly what I'd like to say. Oh this bit:

Ms XXXX checked with the company which hosts the Complainant’s website who advised her to report the matter to Nominet. Ms XXX telephoned Nominet who advised her not to buy the Domain Name [and instead issue a complaint]

This is something that we've never advised anyone to do, we've always been extremely protective of our users when it comes to disputes and have always fought their corner, so I'd be interested to know where this comes from.

In short, DG, I'd probably say the safest and quickest solution to this is to give us a page that we can redirect any offers to. In your first post, you asked for a concensus, but I feel that whatever we put up there, it would be a matter of months for this to appear again as an issue, so we prefer to have tailored solutions on an individual basis rather than trying to change our entire system... You know we always like to keep you happy, so let me know what you'd like to see.

Ed

 

[grantw]

Just to add to this, I just noticed the following disclaimer on domainsponsors 'enquire/offer' page:

Legal Disclaimer: The owner of this domain is in no way stating an intention to sell the domain. By submitting your offer you are hereby acting as the sole initiator of a possible transaction between you and the owner of the domain.

Would it be possible to have something like this on the enquire page Ed? Not sure if it would do any good in a dispute but it's better than nothing.

Cheers, Grant

 

[NameDriver]

Hey,

I like that a lot. I'll try and get something up today. DB actually wrote to me that it was being argued that, despite the fact that he had a purely generic link saying 'enquire about this domain!', you actually achieve that by setting it 'for sale' in the ND account. It's all semantics, but we want to make sure that everyone is safe, so we will be offering an 'enquire' option in the front office to keep everyone happy / safe.

Ed