Since November 2020, when Trellian (who own Drop.com.au) acquired “Netfleet.com.au”, they have had an uncontested monopoly over catching Australian domain names that are being dropped, or let go, by their owners. They are the ONLY place in the world that can catch, FIRST, Australian domain names for themselves and their friends / customers (who obey their rules – otherwise you get banned).
As we all know, many of these short, one-word or acronym domain names are worth tens of thousands of dollars to Australian entrepreneurs and businesses. And, when a domain like FB.com.au is accidentally dropped by it’s owners, it sells for 5-figures, just like it did yesterday. Caught by Drop.com.au of course. And apart from the roughly $7 Registrar fee Drop.com.au has to pay to auDA and Identity Digital, they get to keep the rest of the auction money for themselves. Uncontested. Every day.
Last week they caught Defi.com.au uncontested for $50,000. Same deal.
The merry-go-round goes around and round.
The reason Drop.com.au is the one and only Australian domain drop catching auction platform IN THE WORLD that can undisputedly catch expired and deleted Australian domain names before anyone else is because they are an auDA accredited Registrar with a Registry connection. They also own around 6 other auDA accredited Registrars with Registry connections as well. No other older Registrars have been willing or capable of writing the required software to offer a competitive drop catching service.
The above are facts. No nonsense. Plain and simple.
So, who can we turn to, to champion-in a new competitor Registrar that can create competition in the Australian drop catching marketplace?
We sure as hell can’t turn to auDA, Australia’s domain name governing body. There are many stories of auDA denying new Registrars applications, most notably when they repeatedly denied DropCatcher.com.au from being one, which was headed up at the time by one of Australia’s most qualified domain name professionals with 17 years experience of running both ICANN and auDA accredited Registrars.
auDA have not approved a single new Registrar since 2016.
That’s right. You might want to read that again.
Current auDA CEO Rosemary Sinclair continues to stifle new Registrars from being approved and has made no public plans to change this situation, hence no new Drop Catcher competitors will exist and the uncompetitive monopoly will continue.
As you can imagine, a LOT of questions come to mind.
- Why is auDA allowing this monopoly to continue, for 3 years and 3 months as of this blog post?
- What happens when Drop.com.au doesn’t display a domain name, and simply catches it for themselves or one of their friends/customers?
- How can one tell if shill-bidding is occurring on the one and only domain drop catching auction platform, if there is not a competitor auction platform showing other bids?
- How can one tell if all customers of the drop auction platform are real, if there is only one drop catching auction platform, not regulated by anyone?
Over the coming days, we will dig deeper into these questions.
Be sure to put your email into the subscribe box on the bottom right of this website, and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.
[…] The only problem is, the “general public” had NO CHANCE of getting their hands on these domains when they dropped, because there was only ONE PLACE in Australia where you could bid on an auction to WIN these two great domain names. And that place was Drop.com.au(,) a single private company endorsed by auDA. If you need to understand how and why they are the ONLY place you can bid and win premium Australian domain names FIRST and uncontested, you should read our last article from yesterday. […]
[…] 3 years ago, back in May 2021, I was banned by Drop.com.au from bidding on dropping premium Australian domain names. (They are the one and only place you can buy the premium domains). […]
[…] (auDA Registrar) was sold to Trellian (auDA Registrar – which owns Drop.com.au), which created an anti-competitive monopoly allowing one single private company to dictate who can, and can not, purchase dropping premium […]