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Internet

Acquiring an expired domain name

I own lots of domain names, usually because I’ve had an idea for something one day and registered it on a whim. If I haven’t followed through with whatever those ideas were I often let the name drop. If a domain name I want is already taken I shrug my shoulders and move on with my life.

I never really understood the practice of ‘Domainers’, the people who scan the the daily ‘drop list’ of expiring domain names in the hopes of finding something ‘valuable’. All of the inverted commas for these terms demonstrate my dubious regard for this practice. It’s fair to assume that all common names for popular domains were taken long ago, so if something is taken you just pick a unique variation and roll with it.

A name by itself doesn’t make something popular. ‘YouTube’ is one of the most stupid conjuction of words I’ve ever seen. A lot of others are highly generic words, but in no way are they inherant brand names that’ll ensure success of a related product. Even if you owned ‘computer.com’, would you really think to go there before another PC website?

Well, you wouldn’t. ‘computer.com’ is just a website filled with ads, like so, so many other generic domain names. Since it doesn’t come up on any google search for ‘computer’, you do really wonder what the point of it is. Of course, there will be some ad revenue. Weirdly curiously people will go there and possibly click ads which then generate money for the owners. Despite not being linked from anywhere significant, and not coming up in searches for anything to do with computers, it probably relies entirely on the (probably thousands) of people a day who wonder what is on computer.com.

You’re also holding on to the hope that someone, somewhere, will want to buy the name off you. That will never happen either, as your perception of its worth runs into millions of pounds that nobody wants to pay. Not really – why would they? Even if you were a giant, giant computer company, why would you care to have computer.com? It wouldn’t add any value to your brand, and it would just be a waste of money.

Meet Kevin Ham, he has 300,000 domain names and he WANTS YOURS TOO
Kevin Ham has 300,000 domain names and he WANTS YOURS TOO

So these domains sit there, for years and years offering nothing but adverts, clutched by the owners for the trickle of ad revenue and the hope that the ‘inherant’ value of a generic name will some day be realised by someone stupid enough to part with the money.

But I am digressing heavily.

About a week ago I received an email from a spam-merchant, telling me that a .com variant of a domain that I own the .net and .org’s for wasn’t being renewed, and that for a fee he would try to obtain it for me.

Let me back up by explaining what happens to a .com domain when you don’t renew it. For 30 days after the renewal date, there is a grace period in which the registrant can wake up and pay the fee for the renewal. After those 30 days, it is still possible, for another 30 days, to get the name back but it is slightly harder and usually requires extra fees.

If the registrant is still nowhere to be found, details from the domain’s whois record start dissapearing quickly, and 75 days after the renewal date, the domain’s status is changed to ‘pendingDelete’.

This is where things really start cooking, because 5 calendar days after this, the domain is deleted and becomes publically available once again. Just to clarify what is meant by ‘5 days’, as lots of people seem confused, it is five full days after the domain’s status has been updated to ‘pendingDelete’. So if the whois record was updated on, say, the 15th of the month, 5 days after this would be the 21st.

The time on that day that it drops is also very important. Names on the droplist start becoming available from 2pm EST (that’s 7pm UK), and it takes two hours to work through the list. So it becomes a race of people hammering the whois database for the second that a name becomes fair game.

Lots of individuals are at it, but its very hard to compete with the big three registrars that provide droplist services – Enom, Snapnames, and Pool.com. The trouble with checking the whois record of a domain is that if you do it too often, the IP address of the checking computer will become temporarily banned. This is a problem for the individual, but for large registrars with farms of servers and hundreds of addresses it’s a fun monopoly. You simply can’t compete.

But then again, they’d only be trying to get the domain in the first place for one of two reasons. One, someone has paid them to try to nab it (where the highest bidder wins), or two, the registrar demonstrates what can only be called utterly fucking bastardry, by registering the domain for themselves and then auctioning it off.

This is fairly common practice. Registrars can nab domains at the point they become available and hold them for 5 days at no charge. During this time they can auction it off or sell it to whoever wants it. After the 5 days, if nobody has bought it, it will drop again and in theory then becomes available to the public. Except for a small loophole, because if a registrar so chooses, they can simply re-acquire it at the point it drops and hold it for another 5 days. This can continue indefinitely to the point where an expired domain is held for months by a speculative registrar (or an individual with the resources to acquire domains at speed and in this fashion) without it ever being fully registered. Because of the zero cost involved, and an apparent unwillingness by ICANN to close the loophole, individuals like you and I are basically fucked if a registrar decides the domain you want might be worth something after all.

Since registrars provide registration services to individuals, you are trapped. There is nothing you can do, and it’s tough luck. Your only hope is that the name you want is important to you but irrelevant to everyone else. As I have just discovered, even running searches on the name you want, even if it is not currently available, is enough to tip-off the registrar of its potential worth.

Anyway, back to my story. This guy emails me offering to acquire the .com of this domain name. I don’t even respond, because domainers and spammers can get to fucking fuck. While it would be vaguely satisfying and nice to have a ‘full set’ of TLDs for a particular name, I’m not going to spend a penny above the standard registration price, nor will I be drawn in and convinced I really need something that will have no bearing on my other websites whatsoever.

Mind you, I’ll still grab the name if its out there, and so I decide to set up a simple script that, at 2pm EST on the day the domain gets deleted, will whois the database and email me the minute it becomes available, or rather, it will email me when the whois record dissapears. At which point I planned to rush to my registrar (Enom) and get in my registration.

Except it didn’t happen that way. At 2pm on the dot the name I wanted was deleted from the database, but instantaneously picked up by someone else. Who could this be? In reality, there are so few people that would want this name to start with that I can’t believe someone might have paid an over-the-odds fee to acquire it using a dropping service.

But I don’t think this has happened. When I whois the domain now, I get this (name removed):

[Querying whois.internic.net]
[Redirected to whois.enom467.com]
[Querying whois.enom467.com]
[whois.enom467.com]
Domain not found. Code FW-1: DOMAINIWANTED.COM was not found in our system.

Now then, this is very interesting. It means the domain has not been registered by someone else otherwise I’d be looking at their registration data. I tried to find out what ‘Code FW-1’ means, but I can’t find anything explanatory on the web anywhere. Perhaps I’m not looking in the right place.

My best guess is that this is what happens when a registrar procures a name for itself for the aforementioned 5 day period. My suspicion is that Enom have seen my searches for the name on its system over the past few days and decided it might be worth something. As such, I’d never have had a chance of registering it first as Enom would have blocked me and acquired it for themselves before I even got to the checkout.

This is quite cunning, really. In the event I’m not the only one who wants the name, they’ve now got the opportunity to try and auction it off during the 5 day (or possibly infinite) holding period before they release it again. Based on this highly dishonest business practice, I can only assume that Enom would never sell domain names for the piffiling standard registration fee, and instead would seek to hold all names hostage in an effort to make the most money.

It doesn’t surprise me that ‘domainers’ exist. I consider it fairly cretinous to attempt to acquire something purely for the chance to sell it again at some rip-off price. It’s essentially domain-touting and anyone who’s ever been to a music gig knows how well regarded touts are. Generally you’d just wish they’d fuck off so you can buy what you want at a fair price. It’s the very worst kind of profiteering.

In this vein, I received another email from another spam-worthy fuckbag, informing me that they were going to sell the domain in question in ‘approximately 3 days time’ and if I wanted to buy it I should register my interest by clicking the following link. It’s the height of arrogance to purport to be selling a name that hasn’t even expired yet. Clearly they’re trying to determine the level of my desperation for this quiet little name ahead of time, despite the fact that I could, in theory, acquire it myself and cut out these fucking middle-men.

So, the domain is in limbo. Nobody has registered it, but nor can I acquire it. Should it sell to someone else I won’t be terribly bothered as the other variations of it that I own I don’t use heavily anyway. I should point out that I acquired those in the first place as a result of a bored domain search one day. It really isn’t a heavily desired name, and I can only assume that Enom are hoping I’m some kind of desperate fanatic who will pay ridiculous price for a name I don’t need.

I’m not. Updates on the outcome of this fateful domain will follow 🙂

Update:

The domain whois has now updated, to this:

Administrative Contact:
c/o eNom, Inc. on behalf of eNom, Inc. Customer
TBD eNom Customer TBD eNom Customer (legal@enom.com)
+1.4252744500
Fax: +1.4259744795
Correspondence can be sent to:
c/o eNom, Inc. 2002 156th Avenue NE
Bellevue, WA 98007
US

Technical Contact:
c/o eNom, Inc. on behalf of eNom, Inc. Customer
TBD eNom Customer TBD eNom Customer (legal@enom.com)
+1.4252744500
Fax: +1.4259744795
Correspondence can be sent to:
c/o eNom, Inc. 2002 156th Avenue NE
Bellevue, WA 98007
US

Registrant Contact:
c/o eNom, Inc. on behalf of eNom, Inc. Customer
TBD eNom Customer TBD eNom Customer ()

Fax:
Correspondence can be sent to:
c/o eNom, Inc. 2002 156th Avenue NE
Bellevue, WA 98007
US

Status: Active

Name Servers:
dns1.name-services.com
dns2.name-services.com
dns3.name-services.com
dns4.name-services.com
dns5.name-services.com

So, it appears the domain has been acquired on behalf of a customer. This may mean that someone has indeed used the name dropping service to pay a price over the odds for the name, or that this is just what Enom does when it’s setting up a domain to be auctioned off. I’ll only know if the name is updated with a Real Person’s name, or when this pops up in an Afternic auction.