Tucows.com reported earnings after the market closed today
Elliot Noss, President and CEO of Tucows said “we saw continued strength in domain registrations through our wholesale services business, marked by the highest number of new registrations since the second quarter of 2000 and strong year-over-year growth in renewal transactions.”
“In our YummyNames branded domain portfolio business, we completed a $1 million bulk domain name sale and executed an arrangement with the buyer committing them to ongoing domain purchases over the next 12 to 18 months. The contributions from these businesses in the first quarter resulted in strong revenue growth, profitability and solid cash flow from operations.”
We have frequently criticized Tucows.com for keeping the expired domains that it chooses to, of its customers, and putting them up for sale, on its own domain brokerage, Yummynames.com.
However, this practice is turning into a big payday for Tucows.com according to the financial report ( You can see some old posts Here, Here and Here
The fact of the matter is that most of the income being produced by YummyNames.com appears to becoming from the sale of domains its customers registered with Tucows, that Tucows simply kept after they expired.
We still hate the practice and the success that Tucows is enjoying is at the expense of domainers.
Tucows also noted that during the first quarter of 2009, it had an eight year high number of domain registrations.
To see the entire financial report for Tucows.com click here:
Elliot Noss? Is that really his name? It’s too close to Eliot Ness……LOL !
So does Elliot enjoy a glass of wine or beer from time to time? LOL
As you know Michael, I also clearly have stated what I think of Tucows keeping expired domains….. It appears Register.com is just as bad! I have been doing some digging lately and I would bet all these domain names they have listed on Afternic were not all “purchased” from past owners. http://www.afternic.com/names.php?c=0&sortby=&u=105699&skeyword=&desc=&&lop=0&hip=0&website=&nodigit=&nodash=&appronly=&beginwith=&endwith=&exact=&fl=&cls=&feat=&sold=&shoc=&ipp=50&traffic=0&slength=0&length=0&within=0&sta=<e200=&rcnt=&promo=&pmp=&tb=members&obc=&ea_starts=&sortby=num_bids&obc=d
I see Register.com just sold A6.com for $34K and I wouldn’t think they purchased it from Volkswagen who use to own it. Funny how the domain hit expire date on 4-5-2007 and on 4-11-2007 Register.com became the registrant on record and hasn’t changed since… one would think that would of got bids on SnapNames… that is if it would of Made It to Snap!
I would also think, LNN.com was not “purchased” from IBM either or the Tens of Thousands of other domains Register.com holds according to whois.
Johnny
Elliot Noss is the President of Tucows and although I do not like their business practices from a domainers point of view, I have exchanged e-mails and spoke to him on the phone as well and he seems like a good hardworking guy.
Let’s not personally attack the guy.
Jamie
I’m surprised that all registrars aren’t doing this.
As long as ICANN does not enforce a uniform expired domain policy against all registrars prohibiting this practice, its a lot of revenue for registrars to leave on the table by just dropping their customers domains.
I wasn’t an attack…..it just seemed made-up to me. 🙂
I have a great idea, since domainers like yourself, the many followers and readers that you have are so ethical why have none of you ever posted blog on how to file a UDRP. Rather than pointing us toward an Attorney which most small business owners can’t afford, you as an attorney can help us get our domains back from squatters ( or the bad domainers).
Thanks,
Ed
I don’t understand your analogy to ethics and publishing instructions on how to file a UDRP.
However to address your I would advise anyone seeking to file or defend one of these get the advice of counsel and not “do it themselves”
Moreover the cost of filing a UDRP is considerable and if you can’t afford counsel you probably can’t afford the filing fee.
Ed – on wipo.int there is .doc document how exactly the complain should look like. For arguments you can copy ftom thouasnds of published WIPOs. And most of TM typos does not earn that much so you can usually buy it out cheaper than UDRP fees. Most (or all) of typosquatters are reasonable people so if you write an email like “look I am small business owner, you got this domain, I can pay you $1300 for it, Moniker escrow, OK ?” they will sell it to you. Of course must be typo at first sight, not some generic words you decided it is your business name.