On Tuesday 19th February Netfleet claimed they caught Land.com.au for $42,000. But Afilias or Planet Domains ignored the catch and placed it back into the drops for the following day.
On Wednesday 20th February there were confirmed reports that someone had “locked out” the $50,000 option on Drop.com.au to buy Land.com.au(,) but Netfleet claimed they caught the domain name for $31,000. However, Afilias or Planet Domains AGAIN ignored the catch and placed it back into the drops for the next day…
Today (Thursday 21st) Land.com.au becomes available AGAIN on the Australian domain name drop platform market for the THIRD DAY IN A ROW.
How much will it sell for today?
Is the Australian drop-catching platform broken, and if so, is this all Afilias’ fault?
Let’s see if Land.com.au actually DROPS TODAY and how much it goes for…
In the meantime, as mentioned in our last article, it doesn’t seem fair that the Registrant has owned the domain name for at least 16 years with an EXPIRED ABN, and then very recently CHANGED their ABN to another 16-year-old ACTIVE ABN…. But because there was a “gap” of 87 days between the first ABN expiring, and the second ABN being registered… it has been declared they are not allowed to retain ownership of their domain name.
And this declaration appears to have been made solely at Planet Domain’s discretion, the current Registrar of the domain.
HOW CAN THIS BE RIGHT?
I spoke with an auDA Representative yesterday regarding this, and they stated:
There’s nothing auDA can do. Unless the previous Registrant feels that they’re entitled to the license and contacts us and declares that the situation is unjust, we can’t intervene.
auDA can’t unilaterally start influencing market outcomes.
If the Registrar has made a call on it, and they have done that consistent with policy, until proven otherwise, there’s nothing auDA can do.
Interesting.
The auDA spokesman also stated:
We don’t regulate the drops of the secondary market.
And, we can guarantee you IT’S NOT A POLICY DELETE FROM US.
What?!
auDA don’t regulate the drop market in Australia?!
So it’s up to Registrars like Planet Domains and the drop-catching platforms themselves to regulate the dropped-domain market?
Well, guess what.
The Registrar declaring the domain name needs to be dropped in this case happens to be Planet Domains, owned by Arc Group (formally Melbourne IT).
Netfleet is one of only two drop-catchers that can catch this highly sought after and lucrative domain name. And. Guess what? Netfleet are owned by Arc Group too.
This entire Land.com.au fiasco seems to have been initiated by Planet Domains accepting a COMPLAINT made by a “mystery person” or company.
It’s hard to imagine an alternative rational explanation, now that auDA have guaranteed Land.com.au is “NOT a Policy Delete complaint from us”, and assuming Afilias aren’t deliberately or incompetently messing things up on their end, how can we, as rational people, come to any other conclusion?
But!
The biggest question of all still remains…
WHO INITIATED THE COMPLAINT?
We’ve found some ABN LOOKUP factual data that we will now publish, but it’s up to you to come to your own conclusions on exactly who initiated the complaint to Planet Domains, and why Planet Domains have allowed this same ultra-premium domain name to drop for three days in a row.
Current details for ABN 80 137 730 020
Who cares who made the complaint ?
Another generic name will end up in the hands of an end user today and will probably get developed!
The “mystery person” is not mystery to Planet Doman.
Anyone is free to complain so who cares?
And the current forfeiting registrant apparently did not object to the deletion:
“There’s nothing auDA can do. Unless the previous Registrant feels that they’re entitled to the license and contacts us and declares that the situation is unjust, we can’t intervene.”
Deletion of the name is the final word that the current registrant does not have rights to it.
And neither does anyone else eg. any business who has a registered business name “Land.com.au”
Why? Because they currently do not hold the domain.
.au Domain names are a licence, allocated on a first-come, first-served basis.
Whoever pays the most and wins on Drop or Netfleet today becomes the new licensee and, so long as they meet auDA’s basic eligibility requirements, will have unequivocal rights to the domain name.
There is no hierarchy of rights in the .au space, meaning any entity holding the corresponding business name OR EVEN A REGISTERED TRADEMARK would NOT have any rights to the domain name over the new registrant, so long as that registrant meets auDA’s eligibility criteria!
A non-existent entity (a deregistered company) is incapable of owning property and is also incapable of entering into contracts to sell property.
Which means the Trustee of the current registrant may have failed in their duties as Trustee to do proper diligence prior to accepting transfer of the name of the Trust from a non-existent entity (deregistered company).
As I commented in the previous article, neither the complainant nor auDA nor the registry is to blame. The registrar is not to blame either.
The Director(s) of the former registrant (deregistered) company AND the Trustee of the current registrant Trust have made a boo-boo here, no one else.
“The “mystery person” is not mystery to Planet Domain.”
I would take a closer look at the above ABN Lookup screenshot and research. Perhaps the mystery Complainant is not a mystery? Who knows, there may be an alternative explanation as to why someone registered “Land.com.au” as a business name 4-5 months before a complaint against the domain name was made?
IF a complaint was made in this manner, is this not a similar action to Reverse Domain Name Hijacking? And will this continue to happen to hundreds of premium one-word domain names in the future?
Not hijacking at all!
Reverse domain hijacking can only be found where the registrant has rights to the name and someone has tried to use the policy regime to take it from them.
In these current circumstances, the registrant does not have rights to the name as any such rights could not have been transferred to them from the old registrant (the dereg co).
ie. the current registrant could not have had rights from the very beginning!
“Who cares who made the complaint ?“
I would say many businesses who hold one-word premium domain names would care. Sometimes little accidents happen. Like when the current owners of Land.com.au forgot to renew their business name 16 years ago.
This is something we are looking to implement into our client console panel at Registry Australia. A system that ties your domain name renewal to your business name renewal, to help more businesses keep on top with their various confusing renewal dates.
Is registering a business name, that includes a domain name, and then making a complaint against the same domain name, the right way to go about obtaining a the name?
It’s not a “little accident” to wind up or deregister a company without disposing of a key material asset.
It is a failure in one’s duties as Director.
It is not a “little accident” to purchase or accept transfer from a non-existent entity either.
It is a failure in one’s duties as Trustee.
People should read the rules and treat their intellectual property assets just like real property and chattels.
Nothing that has transpired here should cause alarm for intelligent and diligent domain licence holders.
Land.com.au should go for $100k+ easy today
NF result 2 days ago surprised me, some probably needed more time to do diligence and were wary about it being a policy delete name.
auDA’s role is to determine whether or not a registrant is in breach of policy. and the Registrars role is to act upon any legit breach of auDA policy. Also, It should come as no surprise that auDA doesn’t regulate the expired auction platform, why would it? the expired auction platform is performed through auDA’s renewal and expiry Policy and compliant with auDA’s Registrar agreement and Code of Practice.
Good points Scott.
Be interesting to see if this domain actually drops today instead of Afilias breaching the policy and not dropping any pending delete domains yesterday.
Or the day before
Doesn’t look good for Afilias to have a premium domain name dropping day after day after day…