Today Bill Sweetman, the General Manager, Domain Portfolio of Tucows responded to our post of the other day regarding ethics in drop auctions.
Basically Mr. Sweetman repeated much of what he posted the other day on our blog, in response to our initial post.
The domains Tucows took back, were owned by Tucows.
Tucows released the domains into their own auction by mistake and when they realized the mistake they exercised their rights as a registrant and redeemed the domains.
Here’s the new information we got from today’s post:
There were actually 25 winning bidders who got one or more of the 260 domains that were released.
I said in my initial post, I highly doubted that we were the only ones effected by the action of Tucows and now this has been confirmed.
There were 24 more domainers and 237 additional domains which were taken back by Tuccows (we had 23).
Now here is why the Tucows response is not good enough.
I am probably just like you.
I am a very reasonable guy.
I’m not a prick.
Had Mr. Sweetman done the right thing and called me or sent me a personal e-mail saying something like:
Hey Mike we really screwed up and let some domains go into the auction that we owned and I can’t let them go, what can we do to resolve this; I would have, just like you, worked something out with the guy.
I have no desire to kick someone when there down.
If someone makes a honest mistake, comes correct, mans up, admits to it, and tries to find a solution, I am going to work with him.
Just like you.
But this is not what happened.
I got no phone call.
I got no e-mail.
The only way I knew it was Tucows own domains that they redeemed, is by researching there history on DomainTools.com
If I did not take the initiative and do the research I would never have know they were Tucows own domains.
According to Mr. Sweetman’s own post, only 3 of the 25 winning bidders even contacted him about the issue, meaning the other 22 were clueless as to what happened to the domains they had won at auction.
Is this a way for a public company to act?
Is this the way you want to do business?
I say no.
I say Tucows response to, not just post but to the domain community, is not good enough.
Mr Sweetman needed to contact each of the 25 domainers effected by Tucows mistake, admit the mistake and come to a satisfactory resolution with each, before Tucows unilaterally redeemed the domains.
That’s what you do if you want to built and keep customers.
That’s how you conduct business.
Mr. Sweetman concludes his post by saying”
“”””I’m sure you’d understand that we have a duty to our shareholders, as a publicly traded company, to protect the value of the assets contained in the Tucows Domain Portfolio.””””
Well Mr. Sweetman you do have a duty as a public company to protect the assets of the company.
However you failed to see that the most valuable asset of any company is its reputation; its credibility in the industry; and it’s customers.
Instead Tucows chose to protect 260 domains out of hundreds of thousands they own.
Bad choice.
Here is my thoughts on this and I told this to Bill directly.
I think the disconnect is here:
“Do we regret that this happened? You bet. And we’ve made sure it won’t ever happen again. But, mistakes do happen, and I’m sure you’d understand that we have a duty to our shareholders, as a publicly traded company, to protect the value of the assets contained in the Tucows Domain Portfolio.”
I can understand everything 100%. Where you lose me is you are worried about your stockholders but you seem to turn a blind eye to your customer which you should have at least equal regard. Your company’s mistake cost them time and money and all that goes with it and it isn’t like you guys have any understanding of that. You have made no gesture of good will to your customers and that has created this situation. I was pretty shocked when I learned you offered nothing to compensate or help make it more palatable or fix the situation. Just not a good decision. That’s the way it looks from the outside. It looks terrible and my advice would be to look for common ground and contain this mess while it is still your choice to contain.
IReit made a mistake earlier a few months by listing an LLL.com for $900 on Afternic. People bid on it, and won the LLL.com for 3 figures. IReit could have easily back-ed out of the transaction, but they choose to honor the domainer ethics and sell for a HUGE loss.
I hope Bill could understand something about Ethics here.
@ Subash it was More then 1 LLL.com, it was like 6 and all sold and were transfered for around $900 ish each! Amoung many other domains as well which were all listed “in error” Now that is manning up and I congratulate IReit on doing it.
Hi Mike,
I wanted to address a few things specific to your situation that it didn’t really make sense for Bill to cover in his post on our blog earlier today.
In your original post on the topic on June 21st you said “we have participated in the Tucows in-House auction for over 2 years spending in the six figures each year”.
I’m thrilled to hear that the Auction was providing you with lots of quality names to bid on. I point this out because some people seem to feel that the fact that we move some expiring domains to our Portfolio rather than to the auction means that the auction isn’t worth participating in. You clearly show that there are lots of opportunities to find value in our expiring names auctions.
You went on to say that, “under the Tucows auction, domains were auctioned after they expired but the registrant was given 70 days to redeem the domains back. In the event the domain owner did redeem the domain back the winner of the auction was refunded his bid and the domain went back to the domain owner.”
As the Original Registrant of the names you bid on, we decided to simply use the process that had worked for two years without a hitch. We renewed the names, they were withdrawn from the Auction, and the system generated an automated message to the Bidder (you) to inform you that the name had been withdrawn.
In effect we treated ourselves just as we would treat any other registrant. We didn’t contact anyone because we didn’t even look at the bids or bidders or anything like that – we just let the system do its job and inform Bidders of the results.
I guess what it comes down to is that you and a few others feel that – despite the fact that you knew how the Auction worked and knew there was a risk that the Original Registrant would renew and you wouldn’t get the names – this situation is somehow fundamentally different than the hundreds or thousands of other domains you bid on because we were the Original Registrant.
This is where we disagree.
We felt and still feel that playing by the rules of the auction was the fairest thing to do.
I’m sorry we disagree and I’m sorry that you and others are upset but I do appreciate that we’ve been able to clear the air.
Hi Rick,
In your comment you pointed out that Mike put time and effort into bidding on these names. I’m sure that’s true and I’m sorry that his efforts ended up being fruitless in this instance (vs. the two years of him being happy with that process).
The one thing I think people who are getting upset about this are missing is the fact that Mike – like every bidder in the old Tucows Auction service since 2006 – knew exactly what he was getting into.
When Bidders signed up for the service they accepted a Bidder Agreement as part of the sign-up process that included this:
The Service is intended to facilitate the acquisition of certain expiring domain names by third parties when a domain name becomes available. From time to time, we and/or your Reseller will make available a list of domain names that have entered into an expiration period for their original registration. If a name is not renewed by the registrant of record during our stated grace period(s), the name may become available for sale. Domain names that are posted in our auction are sold on a provisional basis only; sales will only be finalized if and when the former registrant has failed to renew its registration and the name may, according to our and any registy’s current procedures, be considered abandoned. If you have won an auction bid, you will be required to remit monies to Tucows on deposit in order to secure your right to aquire a domain name when such registration is considered abandoned. Tucows will not use such funds for its operating expenses or any other corporate purposes and will not voluntarily make funds available to its creditors in the event of bankruptcy or any other purpose.
Following the stated close of each auction, a domain name will be awarded to the highest bidder. Winning bidders will receive an email advising them that they have secured the right to the domain name IF the current registrant fails to renew the domain name. If you have secured the right to succeed the former registrant, payment will be requested of you at this time and you will be required to remit same within ten (10) days in order to retain your right. If we do not receive payment in a timely fashion, the domain name may be given to another bidder, registered by the registrar or we may delete it. If a former registrant does renew the domain name during a grace period, all monies you have paid to Tucows with respect to your auction bid will be returned to you.
The full agreement is here (you may need to log-in to see it – I’m not sure):
http://tinyurl.com/47k69e
I understand that we disagree on this matter but I felt it important to point out that we did what we did by the books.
Hi Subash and Jamie,
Had these names ended up in the Afternic live auction we would not have withdrawn them either. The Afternic Auction runs under different rules than our now defunct In-house Auction system.
It’s ironic that our Auction – two years in beta, never popular, and never officially released – caused this amount of virtual ink to be spilled with its last gasps.
Ken
As I have said before when you are the owner of the auction you are not just like any other domainer.
You are in fact like no other domainer.
There are ways which we have discussed before whereby one party who is both the owner of the auction and domain can abuse the system. No one is saying that occurred here but the possibility is there and that is enough.
Enough for me and enough for many domainers.
If a domain you owns expires and sells on your auction platform you get the proceeds.
If a domain I own, which is a Tucows registered domain expires it goes to auction, I don’t get the proceeds, you get the procceds.
You are not just another domain owner.
I also acknowledged right away that you guys were OK by the letter of the rules you set up, but you normally are OK, when you write the rules and run the game.
However you cannot escape the fact that YOUR customers were treated horribly.
You cannot escape the fact that there is an ETHICAL obligation in addition to a LEGAL obligation and you can be ETHICALLY deficient while still being legally correct.
Corporate Speak:
I’m thrilled to hear that the Auction was providing you with lots of quality names to bid on. I point this out because some people seem to feel that the fact that we move some expiring domains to our Portfolio rather than to the auction means that the auction isn’t worth participating in. You clearly show that there are lots of opportunities to find value in our expiring names auctions
Translation:
After we’ve stolen everything of any real value we’ll charge you 6 figures a year to buy the scraps.
Mike,
We no longer run an Auction.
We’re very happy that we’ve moved to Afternic so that these sorts of misperceptions don’t occur in the future.
@Gordon: Just to make sure we’re clear on this, no one is “charging” anyone for anything. Mike bid six figures a year for two years and I presume that he did that because he found value there rather than because he felt coerced by us to do it.
He doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who can BE coerced! 🙂
Twice taxiblog.com has been pulled from the auction. I have been assured it is coming back.
One other name was pulled too. Still not back.
Neither one have been renewed.
Gordon
These guys have a lot to learn in customer satisfaction.
I now have received response from 2 suits at Tucows who seem to have never hear of this term.
@Rob:
Point taken. Afternic is still working on cleaning up a technical glitch that saw names mistakenly go in and out of their auction.
They apologized for this on their blog:
http://afternicdlsblog.com/2008/06/25/update-on-afternic-auctions/
The timing on this separate and unrelated hiccup in the launch of our names on Afternic was unfortunate but I’m pretty confident we have or are close to having the bugs in a rather complicated inter-company process ironed out.
Hi,
Is it really allowable that a Registrar can siphon off expiring domains for their own account?
I thought the ICANN Registrar Agreement prohibited this.
If Registrars can siphon expiring domains then they put themselves at a very distinct advantage.
Anyone else think this is not right and should not be allowed?
Patrick
Patrick
This is not a new development
They have been doing it for a while.
These actions go even further
Tucows either made a mistake or they didn’t. It has been publicly stated that you guys made a mistake. Ok, then fix it or try to take the bad taste out of expanding set of MOUTHS. To come and waltz in here and make it like Tucows is the victim and turning this back on Mike is going to turn my stomach and that of every domainer that reads this nonsense. You guys screwed up and that happens. But the way you are handling this takes TRUST out of the equation. You don’t have a CLUE how bad this looks. Not a clue. Tucows has always had a good reputation in my book until this. So I think many are STUNNED how badly you folks have handled this unfortunate mistake. When I read Mike’s initial post I figured it would be worked out. He made a very generous post today and you guys still don’t get it. Just an FYI, if you have no customers, you don’t even have to worry about the stockholders. Which came first? The chicken or the egg? In this case, the customer was born before the stockholder and if you lose your customers your stockholders have nothing. I really hope you guys work this out before it spirals out of control. I still can’t get over the concern for the stockholder and the utter disregard for the customer. The wrong department is in charge of your company as far as I can tell. Maybe I am looking at it 100% wrong, but perception is reality and the perception here is deteriorating. I really hope you fix it.
Rick
Thanks for the support but lets not forget this is no longer just about me.
As of today we know there are 24 other customers of Tucows that met the same fate as I did and over 200 more domains that were taken from winning bidders by Tucows.
At the 2007 Geo Expo in San Francisco, Moniker had MolokaiHawaii.com up for bid with a $500 reserve. I promptly bid and won it for $600. Three days later I received an apologetic email from Moniker statingthat the real reserve was $5,000, the auctioneer had misread the price and they would have to nullify the sale.
I was not a happy camper and immediately wrote to Monte Cahn. To be fair, Monte had the law in his favor. It was an honest mistake and the auction rules covered him. But that wasn’t the point. I bid fairly and was told the name was mine. I’d already told others in the business that we’d acquired the name.
To Monte’s credit, he made the deal stick and they transferred the name to us. More importantly, he didn’t act like a “suit” and try to hide behind any rules because his personal reputation is worth much more than that. It may be an old saying, but Monte is what I consider to be a “class act.” And he will always have our business because of it.
David
Well said and right on the money
I have bought names many times on the old auction platform. You guys sound like a bunch of sore losers with nothing better to do but whine and complain.
Did Tucows screw up? YES
Did you think the game was set up for YOUR best interest? I sure hope not
Did you really think Tucows would drop some of the creme? If you have been buying names for two years on the platform you know there were not that many high quality names.
They made a mistake and within the grace period decided to renew them….get over it.
We should be supporting and complaining about the over reaching all of the registers do in keeping the best names. Additionally, we should spend our time working to change the WIPO system that does not favor the domain investor.
Each day I read a new case where the owner basically gets robbed of his name. To me, that is what we should all be talking about, not some dropped names that 3 months from now your prtfolio will never miss.
I think we need to refocus our priorities. We are tripping over dollars to pick up pennies.
“I’m thrilled to hear that the Auction was providing you with lots of quality names to bid on. I point this out because some people seem to feel that the fact that we move some expiring domains to our Portfolio rather than to the auction means that the auction isn’t worth participating in. You clearly show that there are lots of opportunities to find value in our expiring names auctions.”
I am not a Twocows customer, but after reading this I will never become one!
What an arrogant approach…
I agree with Rick. They don’t get it!
Great post Your mindset is PERFECT – you are a person of PRINCIPALS – You are straight to the point.
“I’m sure you’d understand that we have a duty to our shareholders, as a publicly traded company, to protect the value of the assets contained in the Tucows Domain Portfolio.” Very true, Mr Sweetman.
However, the Executive team at Tucows also has a duty to us shareholders, as a publicly traded company, to protect the goodwill of the Tucows brand name and its reputation with its customer base. I fail to see where either of you have demonstrated this in your ill-advised responses thus far.
btw I disagree with Yaron – Ken Schafer definitely gets it!
http://www.schafer.com/2003/11/companies_must_.html
The real problem is not the auction glitch.
The real problem is Tucows quietly building a strong personal portfolio of valuable domain names over the years, abusing its registrar position like no other registrar.
These domains DON’T belong to them.
They never will.
These domains HAD to be made available to the public, either by a public auctions (in house or outsourced) or simply released to the pool of available domain to be registered by drop catchers.
ALL OF THEM.
Tucows legitimate portfolio only consists of the Mailbank portfolio they purchased.
The rest is a public resource stolen by a private company.
I thought they would play it nice with Mike to avoid making too much waves and to prevent the real issue to come up to the surface.
Tucows missed an opportunity and their whole portfolio (except Mailbank names) is now questioned.
They might have to finally release all those names in the future…
Mike,
One time we had a customer who didn’t renew their domain and it went to pending delete and we could not renew it from the Tucows interface anymore.
After talking to Tucows about it, they basically extorted a couple hundred dollars in extra fees out of the client to renew it.
It seemed short sighted and petty at the the time.
I’ve never forgotten that …
Interesting
I am not a sore loser I am a sore winner.
We won the auctions as did 24 other domainers and over 250 domains were taken back from us.
No I will not accept that an auction house and registrar can stack the deck against you and you have to smile and take it
Seb
Image if Verisign had been doing the same thing all these years, taking the cream off the top and auctioning off the rest.
Verisign would have the greatest domain portfolio in the world, except that they never would have gotten away with it.
The industry would have been up in arms, letters to congress would have been written and their action would not have stood.
Maybe operating outside the US has some advantages.
Too Many Secrets
Good point.
I wonder if Tucows charged themselves this super redemption fee to renew the domains or the simply renewed it in house.
I would guess they just renewed it and showed another reason why they are not just like any other domain registrant
Mike,
Can you post the adult names? I want to see why these are so important to the shareholders?
Mike,
They still may be forced to surrender the names with their ICANN accreditation in the balance.
With DomainTools, it would be easy to get the whole Tucows portfolio and separate the Mailbank domains out of it.
If someone wants to volunteer and send the list to ICANN…
Maybe Jamie Zoch could do this as he is an expert when it comes to stats and nameservers watch.
I can say he is pretty upset too.
I encourage you to read http://www.dotweekly.com/2008/06/25/ok-this-is-my-last-rant-tucows-come-on/
Jamie is willing to pay $200 (per entity) to transfer one domain out of Tucows to another registrar !
I’ll personally never register domains at Tucows.
I must admit i’d be too angry to discover my domains (if not renewed), end up growing their illegitimate portfolio.
is it possible for someone to post here this entire list for 200+ reclaimed domains…
perhaps a MEDIA (TV) Piece is in Order…
thanks in advance…
~DomainBELL (Patricia)
Patricia
I can only tell you the 23 of mine.
Tucows was the one’s who said yesterday that 260 domains in total were taken back from 25 different domainers.
Interesting to note that, once again according to Tucows, over 2,500 domains were mistakenly released.
That means that only 10% of them were of any interest that those active in the space were willing to pay at least $60 for them.
So basically these are not world beater domains.
Seb
I see Jamie writing about Tucows all the time.
He has most recently been tracking the new auction system at Afternic, which appears to be still full of problems with names being put in and pulled out on a regular basis by Tucows.
You should go to his blog and suggest that he pulls the entire list of the 150K+ names they have hel on to and send it off not only to ICANN but to the mainstream press.
As I have said before ICANN will not act unless the mainstream media gets a hold of the story and forces ICANN to act.
Remember registerfly
Wait a minute… what is BIDO then?
Guys
These are the 23 names that were taken from us
doingyourself.com
ilovefudge.com
foxymom.com
pleasebequiet.com
clicklove.com
xxxbiggirls.com
xxxplumpers.com
bigdeposit.com
straddle.org
cuteandkinky.com
bungalowsforsale.com
fertilitytips.com
economysize.com
bulkgrains.com
stiffmember.com
blackhardcoreporn.com
classicalmusicnews.com
screenreaders.com
tuneitup.com
customautowheels.com
aluminiumgates.com
frontoftheline.com
niceshades.com
If you want to see some adult domains that tucows seem to own check out
pornpeepers.com
compusluts.com
pornomovies.net
lookingdownblouses.com
bannedxxx.com
pussyshop.com
xxxmaturesex.com
netsmut.com
intersexcity.com
porn-town.com
porn-show.com
All of Tucows owned domain are registered to:
Registrant:
Contactprivacy.com
96 Mowat Ave
Toronto, ON M6K 3M1
CA
and the severs are
PARKING2.MDNSSERVICE.COM
PARKING1.MDNSSERVICE.COM
Kurt
Bido.com is a new auction service on owned, not dropping domains, and not registrar owned
I lost several names, one of which was DiscountInternet.com
I was not notified of anything.
When DropWizard.com decided to build on our own portfolio (2003) we terminated our drop service to the public. It was simple ethics. Why???
Hint:
You can’t service both ends of the cow without getting shit on sooner or later.
Gordon
Still amazing that a public company cannot understand this.
The Tucows guys think this is all over. I am here to tell them that is has not even started yet. I figured they would try to remedy this. Instead they lost ALL credibility in my book. I got this email from a stock analyst that I know who is not in our industry. I did not know he was following this thread. and was quite surpsised. Let me post what he sent me:
“I have been reading with interest the Tucow’s situation and this unfortunate situation.
Their responses as you say , are unnacceptable. They don’t get it. The customer comes first, without customers , there are no shareholders. They are actually creating negative shareholder value.
I took a look at their financial s and history. They are losers. No one with half a mind would invest in their firm. Marchex looks to be a much better investment with sound fundamentals and those who understand money management are running the organization……”
So this may look very bad to us inside the industry. It looks even worse to those disinterested parties outside the industry.
I think our job this weekend when the SUITS are clocked out is to welcome them back Monday morning with a FIRESTORM. I think we need to show then that this is as serious as it gets. If you lose the TRUST, the game is over.
Tucows should fix this TODAY or be prepared for whatever fallout there is. I would suggest we all buy a few shares of this penny stock and show up at the shareholders meeting and let shareholders KNOW what is going on. I think a press release would be a good start. They decided not to do the right thing. They decided not to contain this MESS. So now let’s show them the consequences for screwing your customer and making your customer suffer the loss. TUCOWS.COm is going to become the POSTER COMPANY for the domain industry. Let’s use our collective force and do to them what they are doing to domainers. We don’t need companies like this in our space.
Agreed. This does need to get fixed today.
Researching these auctions takes a tremendous amount of time and when YOU (Tucows) make a mistake at the expense of the CUSTOMERS time and effort that isn’t right. YOU (Tucows) need to own it and make it right.
Choosing to do nothing is a very poor business decision. The fact that Tucows as let it go on this far is nothing short of a PR disaster. It’s only going to get worse.
Where is the ICA ???
I am not a member, and give one good reason to become one !
Tocows, inc. is a “Professional I Members”…
I thought the ICA has a “Member Code of Conduct”…
Guys
It now been a little over a week since I first learned about this situation (through my own efforts) and wrote everyone at Tucows about it.
I not only wrote to Mr. Sweetman but I cc everyone whose e-mail address I could find at Tucows all the way down to their media relations person.
All of the arguments I have made on my Blog, over the past week were expressed to them prior to publication.
All were rejected in the same fashion as they have publicly done and by their rep’s. on this board.
Opportunity was given to Tucows to fix the problem, to notify ALL domainers effected, and return the domains.
It was made clear to all in the e-mail chain that if they failed to do the right thing, that this situation would be brought to light on our blog.
They said no.
Prior to first post, I contact Mr. Sweetman the next day to see if he had a change of heart after “sleeping on it”.
He did not.
He said “you have my final decision”
The first post was made.
As I wrote the post I knew that they would not change there mind.
At that point I could give a shit about the 23 domains.
Now it was time to let all domainers know who they were dealing with and what type of mentality the company had.
We are a small community.
It is clear that despite the fact that we support these company’s with our dollars they couldn’t give a crap about us, we’re just the gum on bottom of their shoe.
The more you look at the situation the more upset you should get.
If you see the list of domain we got you will agree none of them are “great” domains. None are highly valued, they are just nice names that we thought we worth getting for $60.
If you read Mr. Sweetman post he says they actually put up 2,500 of their domains into the auction by mistake.
That means that only 10% of those domains (260) were even good enough to catch the attention of 25 domainers who were actively looking through the lists.
The fact that these domains are of that quality makes it even more upsetting.
If they lost a bunch of three letter .com’s or great one word .com’s, MAYBE you see something in their argument that they were “protecting their valuable assets”.
However you can see these “assets” we’re not even that valuable.
So in there analysis, knowing that if they held on to their position, the whole situation would be exposed to the domain community; customers and reputation on one side, 260 fair domains on the other, they elected to chuck their customers and reputation.
Gum on the bottom of their shoe.
Yaaron
I forwarded this onto the ICA.
I know those guys were in Paris all week for the ICANN meeting which just ended yesterday.
Hopefully we will hear something from them
Mike,
I think the ICA is the best place to deal with this issue.
Not only the incident with the 260 domains, but also with Tucows policy of moving some expiring domains to their Portfolio rather than to the auction.
In my last post I asked for one good reason to join the ICA, and if the ICA will take action, I will defiantly reconsider.
Rick,
I think a good start is an email to the ICA ( I sent one this morning).
I am not a member, and like I said in my recent posts, I don’t see any reason to join if Tucows is a “Professional I Member”…
The ICA has a “Member Code of Conduct” and I think this is a great opportunity to see how effective it is.
Seems Tucows refuses to put the shovel down but insists on digging its own hole deeper. One would think its shareholders would want to know how badly their company is being led, its bleeding customers (hence profits for shareholders) at an alarming rate with this horrible behavior. It must just be those adult names the shareholders want so badly though.
Mr. Black
The shareholders probably care only about profits.
More domains, more PPC revenue, more sales, more prfit
I know the ICA is aware of the situation and will be looking at this next week once they catch up from being at the ICANN meetings.
I am working on several other fronts as well. The only thing we can do is make as many domainers aware of their shenanigans as possible and do it in the next week.
I think a press release about this would be a good way to make sure it does not get swept under the rug next week and let their shareholders know.
I have NEVER seen this attitude by a business in 35 years of being in business. We are just supposed to shut up and forget it? NO WAY! The worst decision they have ever made is going to be the most public decision they ever made.
Ken you are clueless, you are like any other customer. Well you are a public company you cannot behave like any regular shareholder. SO why does the same not apply to the auction ?
I notice you are not replying anymore, especially after the opening line what complete bull.
NO wonder the stock is in the toilet, secondly the shareholders care about BlacKHardcoreporn.com ?
Wow Perverted shareholder group you have. But I wonder how many shareholders do not know their company remember THEIR not YOUR own smut like this. Interesting, And I will say this if they do not make good and the ICA keeps them as a member, ICA credibility is 0 no other way to put it but 0
I am going to recommend that the board of directors of WADND review the Seal of Approval awarded to Tucows last year and see if they still meet the criteria. If not, the seal could and should be revoked. I am sure no skin off their noses but it would demonstrate to the domain industry that they are no longer a trusted registrar and that we are serious about making sure that companies live up to the standards that were set.
My analyst friend says that the bulk of the stock of Tucows is owned by insiders. Those that work at Tucows etc. So if this is the case, the shareholders they are protecting the most are THEMSELVES!
I think the thing to do is just to keep the pressure up each and every day until this is resolved. Keep exposing their business practices to a bigger and broader audience.
They are not backing down and that means the domain industry should not back down. Tucows vs the Domain Industry. Stay tuned. There is more to come.
Rick
Here is what I found
Tucows annouced a stock buy back program of its own shares on May 7, 2008.
Under the program they agreed to buy back up to 10 million dollars in shares over the next 12 months which would represent 10% of the shares once completed
http://www.mediacastermagazine.com/PressReleases/FullStory.asp?ArticleID2=3022732
Tucows had repurchased 2.6 million shares representing 3 1/2 of the outstanding shares, under another program that ended on 2/14/08
According to Yahoo finance:
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/mh?s=TCX
BREAKDOWN
% of Shares Held by All Insider and 5% Owners: 11%
% of Shares Held by Institutional & Mutual Fund Owners: 17%
% of Float Held by Institutional & Mutual Fund Owners: 19%
Number of Institutions Holding Shares: 13
MAJOR DIRECT HOLDERS
Holder Shares Reported
NOSS ELLIOT 334,328 12-Sep-07
STERN STANLEY 203,850 2-Jun-08
MORRISETT LLOYD N 105,000 2-Jun-08
GISSIN FREZ 10,000 2-Jun-08
TOP INSTITUTIONAL HOLDERS
Holder Shares % Out
Platinum Management 2,831,009 3.83
Value $1,698,605 31-Mar-08
PAR CAPITAL MANAGEMENT 1,755,480 2.38
Value $1,053,288 31-Mar-08
DIKER MANAGEMENT, LLC 9,407,035 12.73
Value $5,644,221 31-Mar-08
RENAISSANCE TECHNOLOGIES 687,000 .93
Value $412,200 31-Mar-08
SPARK LP/DE 327,500 .44
Value $196,500 31-Mar-08
Credit Suisse 94,000 .13
Value $56,400 31-Mar-08
GOLDMAN SACHS GROUP INC 58,224 .08 Value $34,934 31-Mar-08
NORTHERN TRUST CORPORATION 23,344 .03 Value $14,006 31-Mar-08
BEAR STEARNS & COMPANY 11,900 .02 $7,140 31-Mar-08
SENA WELLER ROHS WILLIAMS INC. 10,000 .01 $6,000 31-Mar-08
Mike,
I have been talking with a lot of people over the last few days. Many are not in our industry and are just looking at it from a different perspective.
With as many people as this MESS has affected and since they only care about their shareholders and their stock plunging over the past year ,which I am sure is very upsetting, the concept of a lawsuit has come up in several conversations. But that is an action that is a pain to do on your own. However in this particular instance with 2 dozen people involved is a class action suit a possibility?
My source says this would be the best way to bring this entire practice into the light of day and get an equal playing field.
Rick
Here’s my thoughts on a class action.
We know there are 25 domainers in the situation which would certainly qualify.
The problem is that the suit would have to be on the issue of them taking back domains they owned, which they had a legal right to do.
They wrote the rules and ran the game so for them to have themselves legally covered is not surprising.
The question is more of an ethical one.
The value of their customers vs. the value of the domains.
The other, maybe more important issue is; do they have a right to take their own customers expired domains for themselves without making them available to the general public?
In this case the law is unclear and the class would be all domainers who were deprived of getting any of those domains which can number into the thousands
What you think??
Why not send links to these threads to their major shareholders? Let’s MAKE SURE they know what is really going on here since they seem to be the essence of all this. Maybe they are sandbagging them the same way they are sandbagging domainers?
Tucows left on Friday really believing they had this behind them. We promised that we would just start this weekend and that is what we are doing.
Mike,
I think it is worth $20 grand to get a REAL opinion and a way forward on a class action including costs and the funding options we may have. There is so much conflict of interest here that at some point the courts need to get involved.
I think there is some other $$$ on the sidelines that would join the fight that may have not joined any associations and waiting for something more specific to fight.
Rick
If we can get a few other domainers in, you know I’m in.
20K to end all the nonsense.
Might be the cheapest money any of us ever spend.
The $20k will get us a blueprint. It will probably cost $100k-$250k to get a result, but when you consider the bang for the buck and spreading the expense out over hundreds of domainers, it becomes very cost effective and you get a REAL result.
Here’s the ICANN Registrar Accreditation Agreement:
http://icann.org/registrars/ra-agreement-17may01.htm
Read section 3.7.5… here’s a quote:
“3.7.5 Registrar shall register Registered Names to Registered Name Holders only for fixed periods. At the conclusion of the registration period, failure by or on behalf of the Registered Name Holder to pay a renewal fee within the time specified in a second notice or reminder shall, in the absence of extenuating circumstances, result in cancellation of the registration.”
If the requirement is that the registration is CANCELLED, then the name must be DROPPED, right?
We need to hold ICANN’s feet to the fire to make the Registrars follow the agreement.
Also, take a look at section 3.7.9, this is it in entirety…
“3.7.9 Registrar shall abide by any ICANN adopted specifications or policies prohibiting or restricting warehousing of or speculation in domain names by registrars.”
What’s the purpose of this section if it isn’t to state that warehousing or speculation by registrars amounts to dirty dealing???
Tucows and any other registrar that has picked up a single dropped name without sending it to acution has to be forced by ICANN to drop those names!
The Registrar Accreditation Agreement is currently up for public comment:
http://icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-18jun08-en.htm
Every domainer needs to make their voice heard here loudly and clearly that this crap has to stop.
Tell ICANN that language MUST be added to the Registrar Agreement to ABSOLUTELY PROHIBIT registrars from WAREHOUSING OR SPECULATION IN DOMAIN NAMES BY REGISTRARS. Send your comments to: raa-consultation@icann.org.
The deadline is August 4th!
The Tucows.com MESS mentioned in the DNJournal.com newsletter
http://www.dnjournal.com/newsletters/2008/june.htm
I also see GoDaddy reversed course and is doing the right thing. Will Tucows.com follow their lead and make some better decisions?
I met with Howard today and we agreed that the WADND board of advisors should weigh in and see if Tucows.com still meet the criteria for our seal.
Hope their shareholders are getting their monies worth. This is just the beginning of the fallout. Abuse of domainers is going to STOP and those that don’t believe it, just take a seat and watch how this unfolds. Remember last week Tucows had a chance to contain this. Now they don’t. This is unraveling faster than they can keep up with the events and it is going to spread further faster. When do you all think they will get a clue?
The Board of Advisors of WADND.com are now officially considering rescinding the “Seal of Approval” awarded to Tucows. I will post results when available. Probably in the next day or two if not sooner.
More fallout from a TERRIBLE response!
It has become clear that Tucows is being run into the ground (check their stock price over the past year) by the bunch of lying, petty thieves in Toronto who are now in charge of it.
Very super information.