We’ve been contacted by a guy called Ian who recently lost his domain name and he wanted his story published to help other people understand the importance of keeping your company, business and ABN details up to date.
Ian owned his domain name “Trillian.com.au” for over 22 years.
Last week, he lost his domain, which he is very sad about.
He admits he’s part to blame for not updating his Domain Registrant information 16 years ago when his company, that owned the domain, was deregistered, but still, he didn’t expect to lose his domain name by an anonymous complaint recently, after all this time, and after paying renewal fees for decades.
Here is Ian’s story that he’s asked us to publish.
Note: Editor’s notes appear in square brackets.
A big thanks to Ed [from DBR] on Saturday for his time, he’s the first person I’ve spoken to who got what I’ve been through over the last 6 months with auDa.
I’ve been the registrant of trillian.com.au since 1999, although the company Trillian Pty Ltd was deregistered in 2006, since then the domain has been renewed without issue.
My pain began about 6 months ago when I received an anonymous eligibility complaint from Synergy Wholesale, as I had the domain registered to a deregistered company. In any case, I had another valid ABN, so I was told I needed to complete a Transfer of Domain Name Chain of Title Form and lodge it with Ventra IP, to transfer the domain name into my current company. However this was rejected By Ventra IP due to the lapse between my previous company being deregistered and my new company being registered.
After this I got in touch with auDa and raised a case (00031487) with them, they also rejected the request. I was able to speak with a lady (Steph) there at some length. I reiterated with her that I had a valid ABN which I could transfer the domain name into. Although she was sympathetic with my situation she insisted that there was nothing she could do as they could not complete a domain transfer request for a company that had been deregistered. She believed I was not entitled to own the domain name in the first place, and that I had been in breach of their rules for some time.
I pointed out to her, that if the issue was serious as she made it out to be, that auDa should have done something about it back in 2006 or thereabouts, rather than wait 16 years to raise it. She agreed that they had been tardy in the past, but refused to accept any liability for the situation and that she believed was effectively my own fault.
She refused to make any allowances for me and suggested that I either revive the company which would have involved 16 years of ASIC fees, or wait for the domain to get dropped from the DNS and use a drop catching service such as drop.com.au to claim it once it was removed from the DNS. Steph seemed to have the sole discretion whether my application was successful as there was no further course of appeal.
The domain was deleted about 2 weeks ago after which I retrieved the deleted domain names list where I was able to determine the domain would get purged on Saturday.
On Friday I created an account with the one and only drop catcher drop.com.au, initially I was surprised that I couldn’t see trillian.com.au on their list so I raised a support incident with them, it was at this time I realised that Drop is owned by Trellian.
Trellian immediately closed the case informing me that the domain name was reserved (for them).
I feel like I’ve been duped.
I’ve been in touch with Trellian to see if they can be of assistance either by redirecting my email or creating an MX record for, but they’ve denied my request stating security concerns.
I guess there’s not much I can do about it now, but hopefully you can use my case to make auDa and the domain name system a fairer and more equitable place to be in the future.
Ian has sent us numerous screenshots and emails to back up his story. After being alerted by Ian, multiple domain investors also took screenshots on the day Trillian.com.au purged which can prove the domain was not listed on the day it dropped on Drop.com.au, even though it appeared and was listed on other drop-listing websites like Backorder.com.au and DropCatcher.com.au (which can’t catch dropping domain names competitively due to auDA recently effectively denying their Registrar application].
In short, although auDA and VentraIP told Ian he would be able to buy his own domain name back on “the drops”, it was, in reality, IMPOSSIBLE for him to do so.
It’s unfortunate what happened to Ian, but Assets Australia thanks Ian for contacting us and asking to share his story. Hopefully some Australian entrepreneurs and domain investors can learn from his story.
If you have an Australian domain name complaint or story you’d like to share with us, we’d love to hear it.
Are Auda compliance complaints people even domain name or IP Lawyers or do they just pull their godly incorrect legal, eligibility and policy decisions out of thin air?
Happy to take 22 years of money then cancel the guys domain name and let the audA Registrar get it for themselves!
Without knowing all the facts, it seems the deletion was technically correct. Though it seems a suspiciously timed complaint doesn’t it? Then seeing who ended up with the domain and the .au. I am certainly not accusing anyone of acting corruptly, but the old saying “power corrupts: absolute power corrupts absolutely” did come to mind. This is what can happen with monopolistic market power, and without having to answer to anyone.
So Trillian.com.au was registered to a guy before the current owners existed
22 years ago Auda did not even have .au namespace management rights. The registration of Trillian.com.au was before Auda
Ian should have hired lawyer Antoine Pace and read this and quoted legal precedent to auda
GADENS Lawyers beat auda decision
https://www.gadens.com/news-gadens-acts-domain-name-owner-inaugural-application-auda/
This is disgusting and reeks of …… Reading this makes me feel sick.