Our post of last night apparently caused a stir in .TV land.
Tonight, Name.com has pulled all of the pricing it was showing for .TV premium domains if they were to drop.
We’re are not sure if Enom the registrar or VeriSign the owner of the .TV registry ordered or pressured name.com to block this info, but the info is gone.
We showed you last night a screen shot of the what the “new” price for 2 currently owned .TV premium domains would be, if they were dropped by the current owner.
One of the domains, Great.TV is owned by us.
The other Domain we showed you was Porn.TV, a premium .TV domain that is long been rumored to have one of the highest annual renewal costs.
Until tonight, Name.com, showed how much the .TV registry would charge a new buyer for the domain, for a one time payment with normal renewal costs.
In the case of Great.TV, which Enom is charging me $3,000 a year to renew, if I dropped it, anyone would be able to purchase it for $435.
Tonight all of the registered premium domains I search for on Name.com, returns a price of $1,160,000 (see below).
So this is solution that Enom and Verisign appearently came to after my post of last night.
Don’t address the problem.
Don’t fix the problem.
Just take the information away.
Nice.
What I was told by Enom a few days ago when I directly inquired about the future cost of my Great.tv domain
“Your annual renewal fee is $3,000. If you don’t renew VeriSign may re-price the premium .tv domain and it will be available for anyone to register.”
The message was clear from Enom, pay us the renewal fee we set or someone will be able to grab the domain for a fraction of the cost.
Now we know the price would be in the case of Great.Tv, $435.
In the Case of Porn.Tv, just over $1K.
The way I look at it, when a registrar, tells you to pay almost 8X more PER YEAR than the registry itself is willing to SELL the domain for its now longer a renewal fee, its blackmail.
Let me say it again.
The .TV registry is willing to SELL the domain through all its registrars, for a one time payment of $435 (including the registrars commission or cut) yet my registrar wants me to pay them $3K each and every year to renew the domain forever.
Once again I only own 1 premium .TV domain.
Its 1 domain out of of the approximately 75,000 we own.
So this domain isn’t going to make us or break us.
It’s the principal.
It’s all of the domainers who find themselves in this same situation that I’m speaking up for.
As far as I see it there are only 2 possible and plausible solutions to this problem:
1. The .TV registry announces a policy that for any premium domain with a premium annual renewal fee, that domain will have to stay with the registrar of record before March 18th (Enom) and the renewal fee will carry over in perpetuity to the new owner if the domain is dropped or deleted by the current holder.
However this model did not seem to be working for the .TV registry and would go against the whole reason for the registry to change its policy on the 18th.
2. Offer the current domain holder the chance to purchase the domain at the same price set by the .TV registry for the domain, if it was dropped by the current holder. The domain holder could them pay the one time fee set by the .TV registry, and the normal .TV renewal fee paid to the domain holders registrar of choice.
Premium domains must be mobile and be transferable to any .TV accredited registrar like any other domain.
That’s it.
Those are the choices.
Anything else is inherently unfair to the current premium domain holders.
Here is the real problem as I see it.
Who is in charge of the .TV extension?
Is it the .TV registry or one Registrar?
Once we have an answer to that question, we will get an real answer to the problem that domainers are facing other than ordering that the information be removed.
Here is the new screen shot from Name.com (click on it):
Folks like eNom (Demand Media) and VeriSign talk about how great new TLDs will be, that they offer innovation, etc. This soap opera perfectly demonstrates that those are empty promises, and that instead they are price gougers. One could imagine what would happen if price caps were eliminated for .com, something the registry operators have been trying to do for some time now.
They have no loyalty whatsoever to their best customers …
a chance perhaps for someone to go for .tube or .vid ?
I almost bought Choice.tv last week for $500 and would have had to pay the standard renewal fees. I decided the .tv extension was not worth the small investment.
Do you want Choice.tv for the standard renewal fee or Great.tv for $3,000 a year? All of a sudden a slightly less valuable domain became worth a lot more for the yearly registration costs alone.
Typically you want to “grandfather” your early adopters – not screw them. But screwing early adopters is exactly what has happened here.
This is a perfect example of how much you can trust “alternate TLDs”. This is only a sign of the future and what is to come. Imagine developing a website for $7 a year and in 5 years you are told you have to pay $100,000 a year for your domain renewals. It can happen! This is the perfect case study.
No disrespect Mike, but you did not break this story. Credit goes to Len from Namepros on 3/26. Name.com did respond in that thread and was tried to answer all the questions.
Porn.tv is $50 renewal was never big money. Most premium holders from way back have great pricing.
xxx.tv,girls.tv,1.tv,sexy.tv,losangeles.tv, etc… all have $25 to $50 renewals.
For those who need the link to the Namepros thread http://www.namepros.com/dot-tv/647169-has-anyone-tried-re-pre-march.html
Elephant in the room..
I can’t believe anyone would pay $3000 pa renewal for ‘great.tv’
GreatTV.com was reg’d in 1995 and is developed.
You must think they or someone else will come along and offer you something above the renewal fees already paid (= $12,000).
I only wonder how domain portfolio holders could still hold any properties at Enom, considering all the extra cost with no real value added (but you can add hosting for just $39.99 per month per domain, and each pop3 account for just $9.99 per mailbox per month!)
Ray, I think first related discussion was carried here:
http://www.namepros.com/dot-tv/647158-just-got-off-phone-enom-regarding.html
I ve created this topic and Mike started his post here with a backlink from that same topic.
This is a serious issue for since I feel neglected by Verisign, while I and many others invested money on premium .tv’s years ago. In fact if it werent NP special .tv forum and us I dont think Verisisign and .TV would ever made this step forward.
Talk about non-disclosure or at least confusing /omittting relevant information at sedo’s Auction;
Details:JAPAN.TV
Domain Name without content.
Standard, annual renewal fees determined by each registrar now apply to all .tv domains.
Many registrars now manage the .tv extension.
Current Bid:9,999 USD
Reserve met!
33 bids
Yet: ahead.tv shows
Japan.tv
Domain StatusTakenIs PremiumYesYearly Renewal FeeUS $50000
I’ll bet a lot of the auctioned names will not be paid.
Unknown bidders…mmmm
“Tonight, Name.com has pulled all of the pricing it was showing for .TV premium domains if they were to drop.”
And so they should!, at least that gives current owners a better “chance” of selling their names and getting their money back, it is a step in the right direction, if they dropped those INSANE renewal fees then .TV might get somewhere. 3k per year…EEEK
I guess this is what happens when a registrar becomes more like a cross between an auction house and a domainer.
ENOM and Verisign are crooks and a disgrace to the industry. They shake you down for money and augh all the way to the bank. The ENRON of the domain industry.
Gazzip
Name.com pulling the info, didn’t help any premium .TV owners to sell their domain.
First in most cases much better .TV domains were released by the registry with no renewal fees diluting the value of existing premium .TV domains.
The cat is out of the bag.
Everyone knows now that the .TV registry is willing to sell the domain for a fraction of Enom’s renewal fees.
That will continue to hurt the value of these premium .TV domains that carry a high annual renewal cost.
Everything
Break the story?
Where did I say I broke the story?
Besides he story isn’t about name.com its about the battle between the .TV registry and Enom a registrar.
Name just got caught up in the mess.
BTW I don’t have the time to read every blog, every forum, every chatroom to see what is being discussed. Have I known about the NamePro’s discussion I would have referred to it as I did the other day in my first post about the .TV mess.
Aggro
When I got great.tv it was a different ballgame.
A much smaller universe of available .tv domains, all at high annual renewal fees.
I thought Great.tv had and still has huge development potential and again at the time was the best buy for the money
My registrations of animal.tv, animals.tv and garden.tv cost just about the cost one year of renewal fees on great.tv sure I’m not going to renew it anymore.
Quote-
“Who is in charge of the .TV extension?
Is it the .TV registry or one Registrar?”
As I recall, Rosenblatt (Enom) and Chris S. (V-sin) announced that
Enom will market and manage the distribution of .TV approx. 3 yrs ago
in Las Vegas at a private Enom meeting for the top ETP partners.
But, V-sin would still own the .tv registry.
Traffic started 2 days later.
We all thought it was a big reward for Rosenblatt. But why?
What was interesting was Chris became a VP? at Enom the following month.
It appeared Chris sold-out V-sin.
Quote-
“We’re are not sure if Enom the registrar or VeriSign the owner of the .TV registry ordered or pressured name.com to block this info, but the info is gone.”
When you turn over a rock and bring the light of day the bugs scramble.
Principal
Clearly the .TV registry should be in charge of the extension.
Why they are allowing Enom to act as the registry in holding preium domains hostage with renewal fees far in excess of what the .TV registry would sell the domain for is mind boggling.
Not sure how accurate this might be:
The domain is currently operated by dotTV, a VeriSign company; the Tuvalu government owns twenty percent of the company. In 2000, Tuvalu negotiated a contract leasing its Internet domain name “.tv” for $50 million in royalties over a 12-year period.[1] The Tuvalu government receives a quarterly payment of US$1 million for use of the top-level domain.
On December 14, 2006, VeriSign announced an alliance with Demand Media, run by ex-MySpace chairman Richard Rosenblatt to market the .tv top level domain name (TLD) as the preferred Web address for rich media content. “.TV” premium names cannot be transferred to another registrar. Annual renewal fees for .TV premium names are the same as the initial “buy now” registration fee.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.tv
“
Domo
Its accurate but its old news.
The game changed on March 18th.
yes…but the contract I assume is there till 2012.
Domo
Looks like they maybe in place to 2015
http://www.namepros.com/dot-tv/643212-how-many-tv-dottv-domain-name.html
“Name.com pulling the info, didn’t help any premium .TV owners to sell their domain”
I can’t see how it would “not help” to remove the price.
If an enduser checks to see if the name ie: Great.TV is available and sees a “value” of $435 put on it then if they contacted you to try and buy it they’ll think you’re taking the micky if you ask for $xx,xxx and then tell them its also another 3k per year to renew it…I would.
If thats not going to be a hard sell under those circumstances then I guess I don’t know what is. Best of luck with that one.
If they’re not willing to offer a realistic renewal price then on principal I would dump it and cut my losses. It’s not “that” great – JMHO
Domaining is going to get really bizarre once all these new gTLD’s kick off…should be interesting 🙂
After all the talking is done and eNom has still not relented on the legacy premiums there will be only one effective countermeasure – TOTAL ABSOLUTE BOYCOTT!!!
Drop any legacy premiums one doesnt care to pay the high year fee on, naturally, but also transfer out any other domains and register no new ones. Tell your friends and associates about it and make it good.
If eNom *thinks* they’ll lose money by relieving legacy premium holders of their burden, they’ll lose a helluva lot more by not doing so.
MHB
Looks like they maybe in place to 2015
*******
Yipeee!
Michael it looks like the premiums sold under ENOM, they have the right to change that and not Verisign. That is apparently what someone said. So it looks like even though Verisign owns the registry they don’t want to take money away from ENOM or Enom has to decided to change the premium.
Its the non transparency that is frustrating.
And I did not say you said you broke the story, I was just pointing out who did. Sorry if I offended you.
Apparently Name.com is getting big-headed lately joining the ranks of registrars who have bad-reputation for mistreating customers. Name.com was nice when they first started few years back but lately I don’t know what they represent anymore.
John
I don’t blame Name.com here.
They were pressured by Enom and/or Verisign to take down the Info only they were showing.
Is there any way/place we can place a back order request on our premium .tv domains, let them expire and then re-purchase them at a cheaper rate or is that just too risky?
Peter
Name.com is the only registrar to have this type of service but you have to wait until the domain is pending delete and its only one person allowed to backorder it
so first come first served, though that still does not guarantee that name will get it
Mike,
I would say Godaddy has a better and cheaper BackOrdering system ($18.95) in which you don’t have to wait until a name expires or pending delete. Over the years, I have managed to recapture some of my domains by using Godaddy backorders, especially when the names are in redemption. However, recently someone used ‘Snapnames’ to beat me in recapturing RadioAirwave.net.
Though Snapname charges around $59 for backorder but I think Peter would have a better shot of recapturing using Snapnames (1st) or Godaddy (2nd) not Name.com at ($49.99).
Hi
Hope Im not too late to join in on this one?
I agree with the sentiment and dont know your conclusion.
Take the first section – what do you mean
Regards
I am thinking to start one web tv project and hunting for some discount coupons to save some cash with name.com registration.
The issue you discussed here makes me pretty scary 🙁
Robin.