As we just went to tape this weeks DomainSherpa.com discussion show, a fellow Sherpa, Page Howe, brought it to my attention that new gTLD domain names that have the word Eco on the left of the dot were in the process of being taken back by the Donuts Registry.
Page’s domain names eco.directory and eco.careers are only two of the domains now in the process of being deleted by the registry as the whois records are showing the domains being in pending delete.
Even my company Worldwide Media, Inc. was notified this afternoon that we are losing one of these domain names, Eco.Domains.
The issue is the domains should not have been issued in the first place by Donuts, as Eco is on the ICANN restricted and reserved list of protected organizations and NGO’s which you can find here:
http://www.icann.org/sites/default/files/packages/reserved-names/ReservedNames.xml
This is a different list than the ICANN domain collision list which varies for each new gTLD.
This list “contains the list of reserved names according to the new gTLD base registry agreement for International Olympic Committee,
International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, and Intergovernmental Organizations categories” for which there cannot be registrations at the second level.
While I’m not thrilled about losing the domain, I get the fact that the domain should never have been issued under ICANN regulations and its not due to Donuts changing their mind on domains they wanted to reserve as premium domains.
Obviously everyone who has one of these domains will be getting a full refund from the registrar they registered the domain names through.
Donuts should be issuing a statement shortly that we will add to our post, once we receive it.
UPDATE
Statement from Donuts
We WISH we could sell the name, and frustrating as it may be, the string is on ICANN’s restricted list (and Donuts is managing more than 600,000 names under restriction for various reasons, not including NXD names, which could total more than 1 million), so we were obligated to take this step in order for Donuts, registrars and registrants to be in compliance with ICANN requirements.
If Donuts was a class act organization, they would give everyone one free premium credit registration, along with their refund. I do not feel it is fair that paying customers have to deal with their inability to run a registry. But given they are not a class act orginization, continue to get screwed over guys. Who knows in 10 years this pigeon shit might be worth something, and they may take it all back then, and issue you a full refund agian. Sorry, no trust here.
it would suck if someone resold one of these domains to someone else and now they would out that money…i wonder how many more mistakes will/have be made?
The day it will be an issue is when someone does a quick flip and then the name gets taken from the new owner.
I registered Eco.Gallery Feb. 12th, published my business website on that site (switched domains), changed my business name to Eco.Gallery, posted my college school assignments on that site, gave out business cards with that new website, etc. and Donuts pulled it all off the web without notice to me at all. I’m suffering big damages. I can see a class action lawsuit against Donuts if Icann doesn’t find a way to get the domains back to their owners!
And folks out there were telling me how I was missing out on the new ‘Geeez’ by deciding to invest in none… May I have a popcorn refill please?
It’s to “protect” the Economic Cooperation Organization, that well-known cybersquatting target that doesn’t own eco. in any other TLD.
http://www.ecosecretariat.org/
As if there were already not enough other reasons to avoid new extensions…
In this case the domains were taken back after 3+ weeks. But that is just an arbitrary amount of time. What about after 3 months or a year? When is the domain safe for you to use or sell?
EcoWhale’s comments above point out actual damages. Others probably have been damaged as well.
Donuts is not some small company. I don’t think a simple “oops” is an acceptable response. This should have never happened in the first place.
Brad
EcoWhale and others deserves damages.
And I am sure Donuts will not do anything about this unless forced by a court because you can expect a lot of these “errors” in the future.
I would agree that Eco may well have issues that go beyond domain investors.
Every situation is different
For myself the domain I got Eco.Domains is in an extension that hasn’t even gone to go so there is nothing I did or could have done with it.
Other who have had their domains for weeks or a month maybe in a different situation
Konstantinos
As I told a short while ago when you were complaining about Uniregistry and saying they should be more like Donuts, there are issues, with registrars, registries and there will be more issues, more problems, more mistakes.
As I have said before its virgin territory, something that has never been attempted before and lots of moving parts. You have to accept that some issues, problems mistake are going to arise, not the first won’t be the last time.
Mike I was only comparing Uniregistry and Donuts whois. Uniregistry whois was a mess and Frank admitted that.
This today is more of an administrative error than a systems error.
I’m the registrant of eco.gallery that was being used since Feb. 12th and has caused me great damages being deleted without notice. I wrote a letter to Donuts asking for a premium domain replacement as restitution to avoid a lawsuit against them if possible. I hope they honor my reasonable request. Don’t you think that would be reasonable restitution and put an end to their PR nightmare? Otherwise they are setting themselves up for some serious trouble because I don’t see any other way they can make the eco.* victims satisfied.
I have also made a copy of all Donut’s terms and agreements as well as made a copy of all other eco.* victims whois data in case there needs to be a class action lawsuit, but I hate lawyers as well as the court system, so I highly desire good will cooperation with Donuts.
I mean I don’t necessarily hate all lawyers, I should rephrase: I highly desire to avoid hiring lawyers if possible unless there’s no other alternative for restitution.
@EcoWhale
I am sorry for your loss, it does seem high insensitive of the Donuts.co organization to not offer a replacement domain, since they are going to end up hoarding tens of thousands of domains for themselves.
I think if court action was taken in a class action setting, the PR of the fact the registry can take back domains almost a month in, and what is to say any set time limit, would be very bad for their launch, as people would discount this greatly, and be extremely dissatisfied with such risks.
It is not hard to figure out who is affected by it, and most of these cases get settled before they go to court, given the amount of people affected, and unless donuts does not provide you, and everyone else with some compensation, I would highly recommend you follow this avenue on the basis of princiapal, and maybe bringing ICANN’s attention to such matters, and maybe they will halt such launches, as clearly they are not prepared.
Hi Richard, yes, that sounds right. I’m not real happy with ICANN either for coming up with a very lame excuse for them also to hoard thousands of domains that obviously will not cause any clash or confusion.
I’m giving Donuts a week to respond to my email before doing anything else.
All registries have in their policies and agreement terms that allow them to pull back a domain name registration in case of registry error. Releasing a blocked domain name is clearly a registry error. While it is annoying, all registrants agreed to these terms when they made the registration, i.e. knew that there was some likelihood of their name being revoked. Further, the “eco” string was publicly debated as one example why banning acronyms would be a bad idea.
I think it is time that the ICANN board finally approve the GNSO IGO/INGO working group recommendations as passed by the GNSO council in Buenos Aires, which would release those acronyms.
It is time…
It boggles my mind to think that dozens of new TLDs have been delegated while they’re still debating if domains like .eco should be reserved and what to do about name collisions.
What can I say I feel for “ecowhale” in losing his precious eco.gallery
asset that he legally purchased, and started building his “virtual” property
on. I too have lost my treasured ECO.SHOES.
Now the question is, if I had of resold it, say for $10,000. Would the regristrar/registry/ICANN/DONUTS/whoever else is involved in this
spaghetti structure reimburse the new owner the $10,000 considering
this is the (hypothetical) market value of the asset?
I have had the domain now for nearly two weeks, and as some of the other
contributors have commented, what’s to say, that ICANN in 12/24/36/120
months time decide that they have made a mistake, OR create a new rule to
say that any domain with the name ‘JOHN’ in it, belongs to some church or
religious group, as the name represents one of the 12 apostles, and we
are going to take it back as it should of been or now is part of the ‘reserve’
registry!
What on earth is going on, this is the 1st I’ve seen where a valid contract has
been entered into and someone is under the belief that they now own this asset
outright, it’s now their property, to only have it taken away from them.
So the question is who is the ACTUAL owner of the domain and for how long before
the stormtroopers from ICANN or DONUTS comes to your “business” and take it all
away from you! Absolutely disgusting behaviour.
I’m with Richard S. Bring on the class action!
Mistake…..this is no mistake, whether your managing one asset or one million assets,
you have processes and systems in place to avoid such issues…
With ICANN current revenue at $72m (Google “ICANN Revenue”). I’m sure that they and
and DONUTS staff are getting paid more than “burger” company staff where 16 year olds
manage to follow their systems and procedures to churn out the same output every single
time.
Let’s count our lucky stars that ICANN are not in the airline business!
“I have also made a copy of all Donut’s terms and agreements…”
Good. When you get to the part about revocation of domain names due to registry error – which exists in .com as well – you’ll let us all know about it.
Even though Donuts may be within their rights as a registry, and legally obligated to operate according to ICANN’s terms and conditions, it’s the optics and the PUBLIC PERCEPTION that’s causing the fallout.
If Donuts had any class or sense of fairness they would have thought this through more thoroughly and offered the registrants impacted some form of compensation whether it be free premium registrations or other consideration.
** Breaking News **
I spoke with a top level representative at Donuts who convincingly assured me they are working quickly for a reasonable resolution. I’m on standby.
I am disgusted that Donuts would do this.
http://www.dnforum.com/f17/donuts-registry-screws-up-makes-page-howe-others-eat-thread-521681.html
As the registrant of eco.gallery, eco.photos and eco.graphics, have created a page regarding the story of Eco.Gallery in particular as well as other eco.*** domains. There are two easy polls, so please vote.
http://www.cool.ventures/ecogallery.html