I wanted to pick up a domain name which was being deleted so I ended up reading through this and other forums. I back ordered the domain through the biggies; snapnames, pool, club drop. The domain is now in an auction. The whole process has left a bad taste in my mouth. It seems nuts that a company like snapnames can get a domain for free (for five days) and then auction it pocketing $172,000 (dreamlife.com). Domain tasters are 'juggling' hundreds of thousands of domains in free five day periods. It seems like the system is broken as far as the public interest goes. Does anyone know if ICANN are doing anything about it?
Do you mean the domain name was in pending delete, then got released, then it got caught by SnapNames? If yes, then they did what they're expected to do by their customers. On the side, ICANN has a task force working on the issue. But even if they do come up with specific guidelines addressing this, it's not going to stop some of them from still being able to carry out what they want (although it might be a bit more limited and costly). As far as public interest, that depends on what public interest is being talked about here. It's not just end users like you and me as many want to believe.
ICANN are so ineffective that I wonder if they are taking kickbacks (bribes). Aside from believing that an idiocracy reigns in ICANN I can't see any other explanation than corruption for them allowing snapnames et al to prejudice individual internet user’s interests.
The reason SnapNames exists is because many people wanted a service to do exactly what they do: try to capture a domain name before someone beats them to it. Even if they're forced out of business (which is highly unlikely), it's not going to stop others from developing their own automated solutions and still beat you to the punch. That's something neither ICANN nor any force on earth can stop...unless you can hunt down each and every one of those people who try that.
It would be better for ICANN to introduce a transparrent process for selling or auctioning expiring domains. At least we would know what is going on.
I found that out when i wanted to try to reg a name soon to be dropped then saw that one of the "good guys-lol" had it up for auction. It also left a really bad taste... Maybe strilke a deal with ICANN? Do as they do maybe. I think it really stinks!
Define transparency. Show who are bidding on the domain name in real time? Display their IP addresses and locations? (which potentially infringe on privacy concerns...) Able to determine which 2 users or so are bidding for this entity? (and who's gonna bother checking them out?) Good luck working out the devil in the details.
Nothing wrong with drop services but a small re-stock fee would help limit the other issue of domain tasting.